Latest news with #CertificateofNeed
Boston Globe
16-05-2025
- Health
- Boston Globe
A proposal to remove hospice providers from a state review poses a threat to patient care
Get Rhode Island News Alerts Sign up to get breaking news and interesting stories from Rhode Island in your inbox each weekday. Enter Email Sign Up The CON process isn't one of the flashier, public-facing functions of state government, but it has a direct impact on the quality of health and hospice care that Rhode Islanders receive throughout their lives. Advertisement The CON process is used to determine the need for a particular health care service and to ensure that providers entering Rhode Island are prepared and equipped to provide the highest quality, most ethical care before receiving a license. Exempting hospice from meeting the rigorous standards that a CON requires poses an immediate threat to the quality of patient care. Advertisement In fact, extensive In the last decade, profit-driven private equity firms have spent more than Recently, based on increased reports of hospice fraud, waste and abuse, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced All of this is a warning for Rhode Island. To roll back Certificate of Need requirements for hospice providers exposes vulnerable Rhode Islanders to the whims of anonymous, for-profit operators who put profit first, and patient care a distant second. Research has demonstrated that states with CON requirements have much higher quality of hospice care. When we opened in 1976, HopeHealth was only the second hospice in the United States. As the leader of this nonprofit organization, I can tell you that this work is not about maximizing profits. It's a calling. On behalf of our patients, their families, and our employees, we strongly urge the General Assembly not to weaken Rhode Island's Certificate of Need process. Instead, we should recommit to maintaining the high-quality hospice system that provides a level of care that Rhode Islanders have come to expect — and deserve — from their hospice providers by keeping hospice in CON. Advertisement Diana Franchitto is the president and CEO of HopeHealth Hospice & Palliative Care.
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mon Health System gets go ahead for new $26.5M hospital in Bridgeport
MORGANTOWN — Almost three years after filing for a Certificate of Need, Mon Health System has been given the approval to build a new hospital in Bridgeport. The week of April 3, officials with Vandalia Health filed for a building permit to construct Vandalia Health Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospital at Charles Pointe Crossing in Bridgeport. "This week's filing of the hospital's building permit with the City of Bridgeport marks a key milestone in a process that began nearly three years ago in July 2022, when Mon Health System filed for a Certificate of Need for the facility," states a press release. "The path to construction included extensive collaboration with Charles Pointe developers, Genesis Partners, the City of Bridgeport, Harrison County Commission and stakeholders within the county's tax increment financing district." At a cost of $26.5 million, the new two-story hospital will be built in the rapidly-developing Charles Point Crossing on a parcel of land just past Menards. The 40,000-square-foot small format hospital is modeled after Vandalia Health Mon Marion Neighborhood Hospital, which opened in White Hall in 2022. 'Vandalia Health Mon Marion Neighborhood Hospital has become a model for delivering advanced medical services in a smaller, more accessible footprint. We've exceeded expectations in patient satisfaction, speed of care and operational efficiency, and have been recognized as having one of the shortest emergency room visit times in the nation,' said Dr. Christopher Edwards, emergency services director of Vandalia Health Mon Health System emergency medicine medical director and Vandalia Health Mon Marion and Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospitals chief administrative officer. 'Our hospital's success has proven that neighborhood hospitals can offer the same quality of care as larger institutions — just closer to home. We're extremely excited to bring this quality, convenient care to the people of Harrison County and surrounding communities with the construction of Vandalia Health Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospital.' The first floor of the new Mon Harrison Neighborhood Hospital will feature 24/7 emergency care, including eight emergency rooms staffed by board-certified physicians who will provide comprehensive inpatient care. The first floor will contain 10 private inpatient rooms, pharmacy services, radiology services such as CT, MRI, ultrasound, X-ray, echocardiogram and more. The second floor will be constructed as shell space reserved for future clinical or administrative expansion, and will be designed to address future needs of the community. 'This hospital is the result of incredible collaboration at every level,' said David Goldberg, president and CEO of Mon Health System and Davis Health System - Vandalia Health Northern Region, and executive vice president of Vandalia Health. 'From the City of Bridgeport and Harrison County Commission to Genesis Partners and our partners in the TIF district — everyone came together with a shared vision to improve access to health care in Harrison County. "We are deeply grateful for their support, partnership and unwavering commitment to bringing this much-needed facility to life for the people of Harrison County. With our new hospital, we cannot wait to deliver on our promise to provide exceptional care to this region. Mon Health is known far and wide and now as Vandalia Health, the breadth and depth of resources only enhance our ability to meet the needs of the community, one patient at a time.' Construction will begin in spring 2025 and is anticipated to take just over a year, with architectural and engineering work already complete. Equipment has been ordered, and materials are in process for development this month.
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
NC Senate to consider bill ending certification process for new health care facilities
Two North Carolina Senate committees have advanced a bill repealing the state's 'certificate of need' law that requires new health care services and facilities go through an approval process to determine their necessity. Whether the General Assembly passes the bill, known as Senate Bill 370, may ultimately be a moot point. The state courts are currently considering a case that could also bring an end to certificate of need laws in North Carolina at the direction of the state Supreme Court, which in October wrote that the lawsuit's allegations 'could render the Certificate of Need law unconstitutional in all its applications.' Currently, 35 states require health care providers to complete the certificate of need process before creating certain new offerings. In North Carolina, that process is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services with the aim of restricting 'unnecessary increases in health care costs' and 'unnecessary health services and facilities based on geographic, demographic and economic consideration.' The North Carolina Healthcare Association, which represents hospitals, supports the practice, writing in a 2024 policy brief that the program 'ensures that hospitals and health systems maintain the resources to provide high-value care to all.' Proponents of certificate of need laws say they prevent unnecessary expenses on new medical facilities and services that would be underutilized and whose costs would ultimately be passed down to patients. Opponents say that in practice, the program impedes vital health care expansion and forces patients to shoulder the cost of millions in consulting and legal fees that hospitals pay to navigate the certificate of need process. Sen. Benton Sawrey (R-Johnston), one of the repeal bill's primary sponsors, criticized the certificate of need process as 'anticompetitive,' arguing that by allowing the market to decide where new facilities and services are necessary, patients will be better off and will be able to pay less for medical services. 'Ironically, a government program originally aimed at reducing health care prices is likely inflating them, at least in some situations,' Sawrey said. 'I think we can be proactive about this decision, but it requires a willingness to have that discussion rather than fall back time and again on the same entrenched positions that don't work, don't control costs, and don't let innovation occur in North Carolina's healthcare space.' Sen. Jim Burgin (R-Harnett), a longtime hospital board member, called the change 'long overdue' and said in his experience, the process to receive a certificate of need takes a minimum of two years and $500,000 in legal fees. 'We could do not any cancer treatments in Harnett County up until this past year,' Burgin said. 'We went through the CON process in the years, but it took six years — really eight, if you add the work-up to it — from the time we started talking about it.' Tim Rogers, CEO of the Association for Home and Hospice Care of North Carolina, said during public comment that his group believes the certificate of need law 'plays a vital role in ensuring the integrity, quality, and accessibility of this vital service.' 'The CON process helps prevent fraud, waste, and abuse by ensuring that new providers entering into North Carolina meet rigorous regulatory and financial standards before entering the market,' Rogers said. 'This screening reduces the risk of bad actors, exploiting Medicare and Medicaid, safeguarding taxpayer dollars while ethical business practices are held.' Cody Hand, a lobbyist with the North Carolina Radiation Oncology Society, said that linear accelerators, like those Burgin said were held up by the CON process in Harnett County, require such careful review because they emit ionizing radiation and so are classified as nuclear technology. 'They require strict safety protocols that in this state don't exist outside of the CON process,' Hand said. 'The CON process serves as a critical checkpoint in both the safety and the staffing, not necessarily for cost control and not necessarily for planning, but for safety and accountability.' After passing the Health Care committee Wednesday, the bill received a favorable recommendation from the Senate Rules Committee Thursday morning. It has not yet been scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor.
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
CON repeal, a Morrisey priority, fails again as WV House strongly rejects discharging bill to floor
Dels. Matthew Rohrbach, Brandon Steele and J.B. Akers discuss House Rules at the speaker's podium on Friday, March 28, 2025, as confusion dominated the debate to discharge House Bill 2007 from committee to the floor. (Perry Bennett | West Virginia Legislative Photography) Another nail was hammered into the coffin of Certificate of Need repeal on Friday, as the West Virginia House of Delegates overwhelmingly voted down — after a drawn out 'fiasco' over rules and procedure — a motion to discharge House Bill 2007. With 10 members absent and not voting, lawmakers in the body voted 72-15 against discharging the bill. The discharge motion, if successful, would have brought the original version of HB 2007 — a bill to totally repeal the Certificate of Need process in the state — to the House floor, where the full body would have considered it for the first time. The bill died last month in the House Committee on Health and Human Resources when lawmakers voted 13-12 against it. Del. Chris Anders, R-Berkeley, made the motion to discharge the bill from committee and to the floor, saying members should support his motion because HB 2007 'will end the government created monopoly on health care.' In response to Anders, Del. Carl Martin, R-Upshur, immediately made a motion to table his discharge motion. But Martin's motion, said Del. Matthew Rohrbach, R-Cabell, who was acting as speaker, was out of order and not allowed based on rules of the chamber. This is despite a motion to table a discharge motion previously being successful earlier this session. That previous motion and vote, Rohrbach said, should have been out of order as well. Del. Brandon Steele, R-Raleigh, called for a motion to overturn Rohrbach's ruling, which was supported by House counsel as well as the House parliamentarian and House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, who was not present Friday. 'What are we even doing here?!' Steele exclaimed, before his motion failed 58-31. With that failed vote, and after several back-and-forths regarding the technicalities of the House Rules as well as Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure — the rulebook that dictates House actions this year alongside the chamber's own rules — Rohrbach's ruling that Martin's motion to table the discharge motion was out of order stood as the rule of the chamber. The body then voted down Anders' original discharge motion, laying HB 2007 to rest yet again. Repealing Certificate of Need in West Virginia was one of only two health care policies that Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced as priorities for his first legislative session this year. The other policy — adding religious and philosophical exemptions to the state's vaccine mandates — failed on the House floor earlier this week. During his State of the State, Morrisey called the Certificate of Need process 'big government activism at its worst' and promised that by repealing it, the state would 'move toward the free market.' Bills to repeal CON have been introduced in the Legislature annually since at least 2017. This year marked the second time ever that the bill made it to a committee, as well as the second time it was voted down by that committee. CON is a regulatory process, overseen by the West Virginia Health Care Authority, that requires entities looking to create or expand health care services in the state to receive a legal document proving those new services fit an unmet need in the area. Through the Health Care Authority, those interested in obtaining a Certificate of Need receive technical assistance before applying to see what need they are meeting. Services are approved through a needs methodology and different services — such as hospice care, ambulatory centers, clinics, private practices and specialty services — have different methodologies. Proponents for the repeal believe that doing away with the laws will allow more competition in health care across West Virginia. Those against repeal worry that doing away with the process will hurt West Virginia's more rural and vulnerable populations, where a lack of regulation could threaten what services are offered to the 75% of residents who are government payers, meaning their health insurance comes from Medicare, Medicaid or the Public Employees Insurance Agency. While the House's version of the bill to repeal Certificate of Need seems relatively dead — all bills must be at least on first reading on the floor in their chambers of origin by Sunday — another bill has been introduced in the Senate that would do the same. Lawmakers there, however, have yet to touch it and seem unlikely to do so. In past years, there have been Hail Mary attempts to amend a total repeal of certificate of need into other bills that deal with the same section of code. It's possible the same could happen this year, as several bills that touch on Certificate of Need are still circulating as crossover day approaches next week. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Micro-hospital Certificate of Need bill dies in committee
Mar. 27—dbeard @ MORGANTOWN — A bill to exempt micro-hospitals from the Certificate of Need process died in the House Health Committee on Thursday. The original HB 3487 aimed to eliminate CON requirements for construction or acquisition of a small format or micro-hospital owned by a system with one or more existing licensed hospitals in the state. The version the committee took up and killed opened it up to anyone wishing to build a micro-hospital. The new facility would have to be located to increase care capacity without jeopardizing any nearby critical access hospitals. It could include up to 25 inpatient beds, up to 25 emergency room beds, a CT scanner, an MRI scanner and other services. The cost could not exceed $100 million. Committee counsel pointed out micro-hospitals are not defined in current code — the bill would set aside a new exception for small-format hospitals that are subject to CON. Lead sponsor Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson, said again that the Eastern Panhandle lacks access to care. He added that micro-hospitals tend to be built in high-density suburban areas like the panhandle, rather than rural areas. "We're going to give our citizens more access to healthcare, " he said. Delegate Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, opposed the bill, agreeing that all West Virginians need better access to healthcare. But Mon Health System built a small-format hospital in Marion and is breaking ground on one in Harrison, and went through CON for both. A major problem, she said, is inability to recruit staff. But there is a process in place and noting hinders a health system from applying. As we reported following the initial committee hearing on the bill, Mon Health System /Vandalia North and the West Virginia Hospital Association both opposed the bill. A voice vote followed the debate, with a few votes for the bill and the louder majority against it.
