Applying for Help

• The HCA Hope Fund helps employees who’ve been affected by hardship due to an event beyond their control.
• This includes disasters, extended illness/injury and other special situations.
• The fund offers assistance to help pay for essential living expenses, such as housing, utilities, food, clothing and other basic necessities.
• Levels of emergency assistance in cases related to a disaster are based on household size and historical levels of emergency assistance provided by disaster relief organizations. Grants in this category are based on household size and level of damage and will not exceed $2,500.
• For extended illness/injury and other special circumstances, applicants may receive up to $1,000.
• Situations related to the death of a loved one are limited to $500.
• One grant may be provided per rolling calendar year.
• The maximum assistance from the fund over your lifetime is limited to $5,000.

Who’s Eligible

1. Only eligible HCA employees may receive assistance through the HCA Hope Fund, based on set criteria. To be eligible for assistance from the fund, you must meet all requirements.
2. You must be employed directly by an HCA affiliate as a regular full-time or part-time employee or PRN working a minimum average of 12 hours per week at the time of the event causing the hardship, as well as when assistance is provided.
3. You cannot have received financial assistance from the HCA Hope Fund within the past 12 months.
4. Your situation must meet the definition of emergency or hardship resulting from extended illness/injury, disaster or other situation (such as domestic violence) that is beyond your control. For the purposes of the HCA Hope Fund, an emergency is defined as “an unexpected event or catastrophe that is non-recurring or an unavoidable situation of a serious and urgent nature.”
5. The event causing the hardship must have occurred in the past 12 months.

Download the Application for Assistance here.

Dependent Guidelines

Only HCA employees can apply for assistance from the fund. When reviewing your application, your number of eligible dependents will be considered.

Eligible dependents include

• Spouse (unless legally separated)
• Unmarried dependent children under age 19
• Unmarried dependent children under age 25 if dependent on you for support and a full-time student (as defined by the educational institution)
• Domestic partner (domestic partners must be non-relatives, of the same sex, over age 18 and share a residence)

What’s Not Eligible

• The HCA Hope Fund does not provide assistance when the situation is the result of poor financial management.
• The fund will not provide assistance while you are receiving Worker’s Compensation benefits.

In addition, the fund does not help with the following:
• Costs related or as a result of divorce or separation
• Costs related to bankruptcy, legal action, garnishments
• Job loss or low census
• Non-essential items (such as credit card bills) that are not daily living expenses
• Routine expenses (e.g., car repairs and home maintenance)

What happens next

• Your eligibility will be verified and application and support materials will be reviewed by your facility’s Fund Leader (typically your facility’s HR Director).

• Your application will be assigned a random case number to ensure confidentiality. Only your facility's Fund Leader and the HCA Hope Fund staff will know your identity. All identifying information will be removed from the application before your local committee reviews it.

• Your facility’s local fund committee, which is made up of a diverse group of employees, will review and discuss all applications and supporting materials. The goal of the HCA Hope Fund staff is to respond within five business days of receiving your application from the Local Committee.

• After the meeting, the local committee will submit the applications and materials, along with their recommendations, to the HCA Hope Fund staff in Nashville.

• If your application has been approved for assistance, the HCA Hope Fund staff will process a check or deposit the grant into your bank account. 

• You will be notified about the decision by your facility’s Fund Leader. If your application is declined, you will receive a formal declination letter stating the reason why it was declined.