Basic Corporate Structures in Health Care

A conversion encompasses a broad range of business transactions. In these transactions, a corporation changes some or all of its assets from nonprofit to for-profit purposes. However, before examining the many forms a conversion can take, it is helpful to discuss the basic structures of health care corporations.

Health care organizations structure themselves in many different ways depending on particular state laws. Many of the nonprofit categories described below are not mutually exclusive. For example, before Blue Cross of California was a for-profit company, it was both a nonprofit health care service plan and a public benefit corporation under California law. Advocates must research state laws to determine the legal corporate structures available to health care organizations that may be converting or contemplating conversion. Following is a list of the most common corporate structures for health care organizations.

Click on the chart below to learn more about each corporate structure.

Corporate Structure	Type of Corporation
Nonprofit Health Corporation	Public Benefit Corporation Hospital, Health, and Medical Service Corporation Mutual Benefit Corporation
Nonprofit or For-Profit Health Corporation	Mutual Insurance Company
For-Profit Health Corporation	For-Profit publicly held corporations For profit privately held corporations