A current article in The New York Occasions highlighted a coverage at New York College Langone hospital, a nonprofit hospital, which gave desire to the rich for therapy in its emergency room.

NYU’s hospital had arrange a particular room (Room 20) to deal with these whose lives had been in peril, in addition to VIPs. In line with the Occasions article, “for years, NYU’s emergency room in Manhattan has secretly given precedence to donors, trustees, politicians, celebrities and their family and friends.”

That might be a giant drawback, as a result of nonprofit hospitals get vital federal tax breaks and, in return, are supposed to learn the group.

An entity’s nonprofit standing not solely supplies these tax breaks, however typically additionally supplies different authorized privileges (like restricted immunity from tort legal responsibility and exemption from state employment applications), says Heather Rhoades, a principal at Cummings & Lockwood LLC in West Hartford, Conn. So nonprofit hospitals should be very cautious about not favoring one group over one other, she mentioned.

Though it’s not clear whether or not the Inner Income Service independently displays these actions, if the IRS or a court docket had been to revoke NYU’s nonprofit standing, Rhoades mentioned that based mostly on the revocation, all the advantages listed above that apply to nonprofits can be misplaced.