What is the difference between a 'non-profit' and a 'for-profit' hospital?

What is the difference between a 'non-profit' and a 'for-profit' hospital?

Arthur Shorr (Former COO and SVP of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) gives expert video advice on: What are the different types of hospitals in the US?; Why would I need to be admitted to a hospital?; What are my rights as a patient in a hospital? and more...

A non-profit hospital is really the way all hospitals in the United States started: as charitable institutions, often by religious orders or by cities. Non-profit hospitals were designed not to make money; they were designed and founded to provide care to the citizens of that community. Today we also have for-profit hospitals, and this really came about when the need for capital (money) to build hospitals, to buy new equipment as the technology was changing, overwhelmed certain communities. Companies - from our capitalistic society - produced the capital that built hospitals. The owners of those hospitals are investors, like the owners of any stock corporation, whether it's Coca-Cola or General Motors or whatever, and they expect a return on their investment. At a very practical level, whether a hospital is a for-profit hospital or non-profit hospital, we're all governed by the same standards of care. We all provide the same standards of care; we're organized a little bit differently, but from the patient's perspective, there should be no difference in the level of care between a community hospital and a for-profit hospital.