Question: We provide college scholarships for our pediatric cancer survivors. Frequently the costs of cancer care for even an insured child wipes out families financially. We often see families struggle with funding college for our cancer patients because they have invested their savings in treatment costs battling their child's cancer. Our college scholarship fund provides these young cancer survivors with a chance at a college education, which might not otherwise be available. Can the cost of the scholarship program be reported as community benefit?
Recommendation: We recommend that the scholarship program not be reported as community benefit because it does not meet the definition of community benefit. This is a very worthy program, but it is not for health care professional education nor is it open to the broader community. We recommend reporting in a narrative community benefit or annual report.
(April 2011)