charity write off
chrty_wo_amtDefinition
ISO-11179 Definition
The dollar amount of patient financial obligations forgiven by a healthcare organization under its financial assistance policy for patients who qualify based on income, assets, or other financial hardship criteria. Charity write-offs are recorded separately from bad debt write-offs in healthcare financial statements and reported as community benefit for nonprofit hospital tax-exempt status compliance. The distinction between charity care and bad debt is made at the time of write-off — charity care is intentional forgiveness of qualified patients while bad debt is uncollected balances from patients who had the ability but not the willingness to pay.
IRS Form 990 Schedule H requires nonprofit hospitals to report charity care amounts annually. Healthcare data teams track chrty_wo_amt by patient income category, service line, and facility to measure community benefit program scope, ensure financial assistance policy compliance, and produce accurate community benefit reports for nonprofit hospital regulatory and board reporting.
Standard Abbreviation
chrty_wo_amt
Category
Production DDL — FACT_CLAIM_TRANSACTION
CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE FACT_CLAIM_TRANSACTION (
clm_txn_key INTEGER NOT NULL -- surrogate key,
clm_id VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL -- claim identifier,
mbr_key INTEGER NOT NULL -- FK to DIM_MEMBER,
prvdr_key INTEGER NOT NULL -- FK to DIM_PROVIDER,
clm_typ_cd VARCHAR(10) -- claim type code,
tot_chrg_amt DECIMAL(18,2) -- total charged amount,
tot_alwd_amt DECIMAL(18,2) -- total allowed amount,
tot_pd_amt DECIMAL(18,2) -- total paid amount,
cntrct_adj_amt DECIMAL(18,2) -- contractual adjustment,
denial_ind CHAR(1) -- denial indicator,
denial_rsn_cd VARCHAR(10) -- denial reason code,
prior_auth_nbr VARCHAR(30) -- authorization number,
clm_lag_days SMALLINT -- claim lag days,
days_ar SMALLINT -- days in AR,
load_dt TIMESTAMP_NTZ NOT NULL -- load timestamp
);
Standard Snowflake DDL for the canonical finance table. Convert to BigQuery or Databricks →
Why This Term Matters
Healthcare data terminology is foundational for any data engineer working in this industry. Precise understanding of standard terms enables accurate schema design, reduces downstream data quality issues, and ensures pipelines meet the regulatory and interoperability requirements imposed by HIPAA, HL7 FHIR, and CMS reporting frameworks. Without this foundation, even technically well-built pipelines produce data that fails validation when it reaches payers or regulators.
Related Content
Looking for more healthcare terms?
Browse our complete library of 100,000+ standardized healthcare data terms
Browse All Terms