This document is designed to provide guidance to the staffs of Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) in collecting and reporting community benefit data to comply with federal and/or state community benefit reporting requirements or to prepare community benefit reports for internal and external audiences. The document is divided into sections which describe data collection requirements:

• Sections I–III review the categories of community benefits arising from the delivery of patient care services and related categories of activity such as bad debt.
• Section IV reviews the reporting of community benefit activity for community health improvement services, health professions education, subsidized health services, research, financial and in-kind contributions, community-building activities, and community benefit operations.
• Section V reviews accounting issues and cost calculations in the reporting of community benefit activities.
• Section VI discusses issues related to community benefits provided and funded by hospital foundations.
• Appendix A provides a glossary of definitions for the community impact and benefit terms used in this report.
• Appendix B provides a community benefit inventory event/activity tracking form for hospitals to use to capture community benefit data.