March 02, 2020 / STEPHANIE GOLDBERG
An under-the-radar battle between hospital giant Advocate Aurora Health and south suburban Oak Lawn, Ill., has big financial implications for hospitals and local governments.
Oak Lawn officials are fighting Advocate’s bid for a tax break on a new outpatient center near its Christ Medical Center in the village. While hospitals owned by nonprofits like Advocate have long qualified for property tax exemptions, stand-alone outpatient centers usually pay property taxes. The dispute comes at a time when hospitals are opening outpatient centers across metropolitan Chicago amid pressure to bring down healthcare costs.
A win for 28-hospital Advocate—the nation’s 10th-largest nonprofit chain—could pave the way for more health systems to push exemptions beyond hospital campuses. That would take away millions of property tax dollars from municipalities, school districts and other government agencies, including Cook County’s public hospital network, which provides far more care to uninsured patients than any other hospital group in the county.
“If more and more land is taken off the tax rolls, that means the county has less money to support its health system,” says Margie Schaps, executive director of the Health & Medicine Policy Research Group.
