Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: Texas anchors nonprofit-hospital charity-care eligibility to 200% of the federal poverty guidelines and requires a public notice posted in waiting areas and published in a local newspaper.
This guide is limited to the cited Texas community-benefits source and its stated scope.
What changes in Texas
- A hospital’s eligibility system must include income levels and means testing indexed to the federal poverty guidelines, and may not set the income level eligible for charity care higher, for the financially indigent, than 200% of the federal poverty guidelines.
- The eligibility system also may not set that income level lower than what the hospital’s county requires under its own indigent-care standard.
- A nonprofit hospital or hospital system must meet a quantified community-benefit floor, such as charity care and indigent care combined equal to at least 4% of net patient revenue.
- The hospital must give annual public notice of its charity-care program, including a notice posted in patient waiting areas and published in a local newspaper.
Where this rule stops
200% FPL is a ceiling on how restrictive a hospital’s own eligibility line can be, not a promise that every hospital sets it there; a reader still needs to check the specific hospital’s own published income cutoff, which can be more generous but not less.
How to verify before you apply
- Identify the hospital or facility covered by the source and obtain its current policy.
- Ask for the current written policy and application instructions.
- Compare the policy with the official source below before relying on any threshold, discount, or deadline.
Related hospital-assistance guides
Primary source
Read Tex. Health & Safety Code §§ 311.031(11), 311.045(b)(1), 311.046(d). Verify the current official text and the facility’s current policy before acting; this is a source-backed planning guide, not individualized legal advice.