Uncompensated medical services provided by physicians and hospitals.

This article examines the magnitude of uncompensated medical services provided by physicians and hospitals in 1982 as well as variations in uncompensated care among different types of physicians and hospitals. The data, which are from surveys conducted by the American Medical Association and the American Hospital Association, indicate that both physicians and hospitals provide significant amounts of uncompensated medical care. Although the distribution of uncompensated care among different types of physicians tends to be reasonably even, in most cases, the bulk of uncompensated care delivered by hospitals is delivered by public hospitals, with private hospitals (both voluntary and for-profit) delivering relatively less uncompensated care. The implications of changes in the economic environment of medicine for uncompensated medical care are also discussed.