What are the red flags for Joan Coffman, FACHE?

AHA Dossiers Power Map About

Joan Coffman, FACHE

Trustee, term 2025-2027

President & CEO | St. Tammany Health System

Last verified November 4, 2026

6 Red Flags

Affiliations

•President and CEO of St. Tammany Health System in Covington, La., operated by St. Tammany Parish Hospital Service District No. 1. She began her career there as a radiologic technologist in 1982.
•AHA Board of Trustees: elected August 2024 to a three-year term that began Jan. 1, 2025 and runs through 2027; she is listed on the current AHA roster.
•Chair of AHA Regional Policy Board 7, the Gulf South advisory body that feeds policy recommendations to the AHA board.
•Board member of the Ochsner Health Network, the clinically integrated network of Louisiana's dominant health system.
•Past chair of Vizient Southern States, a regional arm of the nation's largest hospital group purchasing organization.
•Named chair-elect of the Louisiana Hospital Association board on July 20, 2026; she becomes LHA chair after the 2026-27 term, putting her at the head of the state hospital lobby while she sits on the AHA board.
•Member of the Louisiana Committee of 100 for Economic Development since May 2024.
•Previously led Hospital Sisters Health System hospitals in Illinois and Wisconsin.

Financial / Compensation

•St. Tammany Health System is a parish hospital service district, a governmental entity that does not file IRS Form 990, so Coffman's pay and Schedule H charity care data are not in ProPublica or GuideStar.
•Her pay does appear in the district's state-filed audit: the schedule of agency head compensation shows $802,091 salary, $195,000 retirement contribution, $21,174 insurance and a $9,000 car allowance, about $1.03 million in total, for both 2022 and 2023.
•STHS reported $489.1 million in operating revenue and $41.9 million in operating income (an 8.6% margin) in 2023, up from $450.8 million and $43.0 million in 2022. Its net position grew 12% to $524.1 million, of which $436.8 million was unrestricted.
•The district reported $6.4 million in federal grants as nonoperating revenue in 2023 and $1.1 million in 2022, alongside investment gains of $15.0 million.
•Fitch affirmed STHS's AA- issuer default and bond ratings with a stable outlook in August 2024. No 2025 or 2026 rating action was found.
•STHS markets itself as 'a self-sustaining nonprofit that accepts no taxpayer dollars,' a claim contradicted by its own audit (federal grants) and its federal lobbying for appropriations, and one that ignores the value of its tax exemption and governmental status.

Lobbying and Political

•Senate LDA filings show St. Tammany Health System paid Adams and Reese LLP $120,000 in 2025 ($30,000 a quarter) and $90,000 through Q3 2026 to lobby Congress and the Executive Office of the President on one issue: 'Assist client in securing federal funding for the hospital.' The same firm separately lobbies for St. Tammany Parish government.
•That corrects earlier research that found no federal lobbying registrations for STHS. The system it describes as accepting 'no taxpayer dollars' pays a lobbying firm specifically to win federal money.
•As incoming LHA chair (chair-elect since July 2026), Coffman helps set the state hospital lobby's priorities on Medicaid payment and certificate-of-need (facility need review) policy.
•The LHA has historically opposed loosening Louisiana's facility need review rules, which protect incumbent hospitals such as STHS from new competitors.
•As RPB 7 chair and AHA trustee, she helps shape the federal agenda of the AHA, which leads opposition to site-neutral payment and defends 340B eligibility.
•No personal federal political contributions by Coffman were identified.

Revolving Door

•Appointment to the Louisiana Committee of 100 gives her a seat in an invitation-only business group that advises state leaders on economic policy.
•Her combined roles span federal policy (AHA trustee and RPB 7 chair), state lobbying (LHA chair-elect), group purchasing (Vizient) and commercial contracting (Ochsner network).

Home System Record

•Because STHS files no 990, there is no public Schedule H. Its audit reports charity care of only about $5.6 million in 2023 and $5.9 million in 2022, measured at full charges, roughly 1.1% of operating revenue. Bad debt was $23.9 million in 2023, about four times the charity figure.
•Lown Institute's 2025 report found Louisiana nonprofit hospitals ran a combined fair-share deficit of $315 million a year (2020-2022), and community investment there averaged just 2.49% of expenses against a 5.36% tax-exemption value. Lown's study covers private nonprofits, so governmental districts like STHS fall outside it.
•Its 340B eligibility flows from its governmental status, not from any demonstrated volume of care for the poor. In 2023 it bought Braswell's, a Covington retail pharmacy across from the flagship hospital, expanding its retail pharmacy footprint.
•Net position grew $56.3 million in 2023, and the system holds more than $436 million in unrestricted net position.
•No 2025 or 2026 strikes, closures, layoffs or credit downgrades were found in news or rating-agency coverage.

Litigation and Scrutiny

•No 2025 or 2026 lawsuits, settlements or enforcement actions involving St. Tammany Health System were found in news coverage or federal audit records. Its federal single audits for 2022-2024 report no findings.

Red Flags

She leads a governmental hospital district that escapes the Form 990 disclosure required of nearly every other nonprofit hospital, yet she helps govern the AHA, which defends nonprofit hospital tax exemption nationally.

Her roughly $1.03 million annual package is disclosed only in a state audit schedule, not in any federal filing, while the system reported charity care of about $5.6 million at full charges in 2023, around 1.1% of revenue.

The 'no taxpayer dollars' message is contradicted by $6.4 million in 2023 federal grants and by a lobbying contract whose sole stated purpose is securing federal funding for the hospital.

As incoming LHA chair she will lead the state hospital association that defends facility need review rules shielding STHS from competition.

She sits on the Ochsner Health Network board, and Ochsner CEO Pete November joined the AHA board on Jan. 1, 2026, giving the Ochsner orbit two Louisiana seats on the national board.

Her past chairmanship of Vizient Southern States ties her to a GPO whose vendor-fee model is not publicly transparent.

Pattern Summary

Coffman runs a public hospital district that claims nonprofit virtue and 'no taxpayer dollars' while taking federal grants, paying lobbyists to win federal funding, and avoiding the 990 disclosure that would put her roughly $1 million pay and its thin charity care in plain view. She has built governance seats across every lever of Gulf South hospital power: federal lobbying (AHA), state lobbying (incoming LHA chair), purchasing (Vizient), contracting (Ochsner's network) and economic policy (Committee of 100). With Ochsner's CEO now also on the AHA board, the Louisiana incumbents have a doubled voice in Washington.

Joan Coffman, FACHE

Red Flags

Sources and Citations