Hospitals strive to provide communities with benefits.

The time is now for community benefit standards programs. Indeed, not-for-profit hospitals are picking up the pace in this area and adopting such programs, motivated by a wide range of factors external and internal. On the one hand, increased public scrutiny of the not-for-profit institution's role, increased attention from the IRS, and encouragement at the national hospital association level are all influences here. But there is also a growing feeling among many hospitals that community benefit standards programs can enhance their public image--and that they're the right thing to do.