Free and discounted hospital care in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Medical Assistance (Medicaid)

State health coverage. Adults 19 to 64 qualify with income at or below 133% of the poverty level. Most hospital financial assistance policies in the Philadelphia area require you to apply for Medical Assistance first. This is insurance, not a hospital discount program, so it sets no hospital charity care threshold.

Applies to people, not hospitals.

Apply online through COMPASS or at your County Assistance Office. Hospital financial counselors can help you apply.

Adults ages 19-64 with incomes at or below 133 percent of the Federal Income Poverty Guidelines (FPIG)

Program source, checked 2026-11-10

Hospital Uncompensated Care Program (Tobacco Settlement Act, Act 77 of 2001, Chapter 11)

A state program that pays eligible hospitals for part of the uncompensated care they give, including charity care. It pays hospitals, not patients. The law defines charity care by each hospital's own charity care policy and sets no patient income limit. Whether the program is still funded today was not checked.

Applies to eligible hospitals (payments to hospitals).

Patients do not apply. Apply to the hospital's own financial assistance program.

provided free or at a reduced rate to patients who cannot afford to pay but who are not eligible for public programs

Program source, checked 2026-11-10

No statewide hospital charity care income standard

We found no Pennsylvania law that sets free or discounted care thresholds for hospitals. The state's uncompensated care law defines charity care by reference to each hospital's own policy. Nonprofit hospitals still must have a written financial assistance policy under federal IRS rule 501(r). This is a finding from the sources below, not a statement from the state.

from whom the hospital did not expect payment in accordance with the hospital's charity care policy.

Source

House Bill 79 of 2025-2026 (hospital-based financial assistance) - pending, not law

Would have the Department of Health create a uniform financial assistance application and a one-page summary every hospital must use, require hospitals to post their policies, and pause a patient's liability for bills while a completed application is pending. It sets no income thresholds. Passed the House 187-16 on May 13, 2025; referred to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on May 22, 2025, with no later action shown.

An Act establishing requirements for hospital-based financial assistance; providing for hospital-based financial assistance forms,

Source

Institutions of Purely Public Charity Act (Act 55 of 1997)

Sets the tests a nonprofit, including a nonprofit hospital, must meet to be tax-exempt in Pennsylvania. One way to meet the community service test is a published written policy of serving all regardless of ability to pay. It gives patients no specific income threshold or right to free care.

Goods or services to all who seek them without regard to their ability to pay for what they receive

Source