Let’s get this straight at the top: Dodd-Frank does not specifically apply to nonprofit healthcare. It wasn’t written with the healthcare sector in mind. It does not directly affect the framework that regulates nonprofit healthcare. It was not enacted to address any practices or abuses that are prevalent in nonprofit healthcare. Unlike Sarbanes-Oxley, it does not contain any general provisions applicable to public and nonprofit companies alike.

So why should we care? Why read any further?

Well, we care for a bunch of fairly significant reasons. Ultimately, we care because it is ademonstration of Congress’ ability to remake regulation of an entire industry in abreathtaking, sweeping manner—especially when there is a perception that the priorframework of industry regulation didn’t work.

More specifically, we care because the Act has the potential to have a noteable spilloverimpact on at least four key areas of nonprofit hospital operations: enterprise riskmanagement (ERM), corporate governance, corporate compliance and, perhaps mostsignificantly, executive compensation. If history serves as any guide, the basic regulatorythemes present in Dodd-Frank are likely to re-appear “somewhere down the road,” in amanner that impacts nonprofit healthcare.