What types of hospitals form the safety net?

This analysis describes hospitals that provide large amounts of uncompensated care and hospitals with sizable teaching programs, using data from the American Hospital Association. Despite current public financial support mechanisms, safety-net hospitals have a lower average total margin and a greater percentage with negative total margins than other groups of hospitals. For graduate medical education, however, the current public financial supports have assisted teaching hospitals with the largest training programs in maintaining their financial viability, although teaching hospitals' average total margins remain below those of nonteaching hospitals.