AN ACT Relating to the certification of hospital services; amending RCW 70.38.025, 70.38.105, and 70.38.115; creating new sections; and declaring an emergency.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. It is the intent of this act to eliminate the requirement of a certificate of need for hospital services and to require the department to certify the delivery of tertiary services by hospitals based on quality of care considerations.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. As used in sections 1 through 3 of this act, the following terms have the meanings indicated unless the context clearly requires otherwise.

(1) "Department" means the department of health, if created, otherwise the department of social and health services.

(2) "Hospital" means any health care institution required to qualify for a license under Title 70 or 71 RCW.

(3) "Tertiary service" means a highly specialized service that meets the most complicated medical needs of people and requires sufficient patient volume to optimize provider effectiveness, quality of service, and improved outcomes of care.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. (1) No hospital shall offer or provide a tertiary service to patients unless the hospital has been certified by the department to render the tertiary service.

(2) The department shall define by rule, consistent with the definition under section 2 of this act, the specific services which are to be deemed tertiary services under this act. This determination shall be made in conjunction with the department's research into, and development of, standards under subsection (3) of this section.

(3) The department shall develop by rule the standards to be applied in determining hospital qualification for certification to offer and provide tertiary service. These standards shall protect and promote the quality of care in tertiary service delivery by hospitals. In formulating these standards the department shall consider the most up-to-date health services research addressing the relationship of health service volume to improved patient outcomes or other causal relationships to tertiary service quality.

(4) Any hospital offering or providing, or which was authorized to provide under chapter 70.38 RCW, a tertiary service on January 1, 1989, shall automatically be granted certification to offer and provide this tertiary service by the department on the effective date of this act. The certification may be revoked by the department only upon its demonstration of clear noncompliance with the certification standards adopted under subsection (3) of this section.

Sec. 4. Section 2, chapter 161, Laws of 1979 ex. sess. as last amended by section 1, chapter 20, Laws of 1988 and RCW 70.38.025 are each amended to read as follows:

When used in this chapter, the terms defined in this section shall have the meanings indicated.

(1) "Board of health" means the state board of health created pursuant to chapter 43.20 RCW.

(2) "Capital expenditure" is an expenditure, including a force account expenditure (i.e., an expenditure for a construction project undertaken by a facility as its own contractor) which, under generally accepted accounting principles, is not properly chargeable as an expense of operation or maintenance. Where a person makes an acquisition under lease or comparable arrangement, or through donation, which would have required review if the acquisition had been made by purchase, such expenditure shall be deemed a capital expenditure. Capital expenditures include donations of equipment or facilities to a health care facility which if acquired directly by such facility would be subject to certificate of need review under the provisions of this chapter and transfer of equipment or facilities for less than fair market value if a transfer of the equipment or facilities at fair market value would be subject to such review. The cost of any studies, surveys, designs, plans, working drawings, specifications, and other activities essential to the acquisition, improvement, expansion, or replacement of any plant or equipment with respect to which such expenditure is made shall be included in determining the amount of the expenditure.

(3) "Continuing care retirement community" means an entity which provides shelter and services under continuing care contracts with its members and which sponsors or includes a health care facility or a health service. A "continuing care contract" means a contract to provide a person, for the duration of that person's life or for a term in excess of one year, shelter along with nursing, medical, health-related, or personal care services, which is conditioned upon the transfer of property, the payment of an entrance fee to the provider of such services, or the payment of periodic charges for the care and services involved. A continuing care contract is not excluded from this definition because the contract is mutually terminable or because shelter and services are not provided at the same location.

(4) "Council" means the state health coordinating council created in RCW 70.38.055 and described in Public Law 93-641.

(5) "Department" means the state department of social and health services.

(6) "Expenditure minimum" means, for the purposes of the certificate of need program, one million dollars adjusted by the department by rule to reflect changes in the United States department of commerce composite construction cost index; or a lesser amount required by federal law and established by the department by rule.

(7) "Federal law" means Public Law 93-641, as amended, or its successor.

(8) "Health care facility" means hospices, hospitals to the extent that they provide nursing home or home health services, ((~~psychiatric hospitals, tuberculosis hospitals,~~)) nursing homes, kidney disease treatment centers, ambulatory surgical facilities, rehabilitation facilities, continuing care retirement communities, and home health agencies, and includes such facilities when owned and operated by the state or by a political subdivision or instrumentality of the state and such other facilities as required by federal law and implementing regulations, but does not include Christian Science sanatoriums operated, listed, or certified by the First Church of Christ Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts. In addition, the term does not include any nonprofit hospital: (a) Which is operated exclusively to provide health care services for children; (b) which does not charge fees for such services; (c) whose rate reviews are waived by the state hospital commission; and (d) if not contrary to federal law as necessary to the receipt of federal funds by the state. In addition, the term does not include a continuing care retirement community which: (i) Offers services only to contractual members; and (ii) provides its members a contractually guaranteed range of services from independent living through skilled nursing, including some form of assistance with activities of daily living; and (iii) contractually assumes responsibility for costs of services exceeding the member's financial responsibility as stated in contract, so that, with the exception of insurance purchased by the retirement community or its members, no third party, including the medicaid program, is liable for costs of care even if the member depletes his or her personal resources; and (iv) has offered continuing care contracts and operated a nursing home continuously since January 1, 1988, or has obtained a certificate of need to establish a nursing home; and (v) maintains a binding agreement with the department assuring that financial liability for services to members, including nursing home services, shall not fall upon the department; and (vi) does not operate, and has not undertaken, a project which would result in a number of nursing home beds in excess of one for every four living units operated by the continuing care retirement community, exclusive of nursing home beds; and (vii) has undertaken no increase in the total number of nursing home beds after January 1, 1988, unless a professional review of pricing and long-term solvency was obtained by the retirement community within the prior five years and fully disclosed to members.

(9) "Health maintenance organization" means a public or private organization, organized under the laws of the state, which:

(a) Is a qualified health maintenance organization under Title XIII, section 1310(d) of the Public Health Services Act; or

(b)(i) Provides or otherwise makes available to enrolled participants health care services, including at least the following basic health care services: Usual physician services, hospitalization, laboratory, x-ray, emergency, and preventive services, and out-of-area coverage; (ii) is compensated (except for copayments) for the provision of the basic health care services listed in (b)(i) to enrolled participants by a payment which is paid on a periodic basis without regard to the date the health care services are provided and which is fixed without regard to the frequency, extent, or kind of health service actually provided; and (iii) provides physicians' services primarily (A) directly through physicians who are either employees or partners of such organization, or (B) through arrangements with individual physicians or one or more groups of physicians (organized on a group practice or individual practice basis).

(10) "Health services" means clinically related (i.e., preventive, diagnostic, curative, rehabilitative, or palliative) services and includes alcoholism, drug abuse, and mental health services and as defined in federal law.

(11) "Health service area" means a geographic region appropriate for effective health planning which includes a broad range of health services and a population of at least four hundred fifty thousand persons.

(12) "Institutional health services" means health services provided in or through health care facilities and entailing annual operating costs of at least five hundred thousand dollars adjusted by the department by rule to reflect changes in the United States department of commerce composite construction cost index; or a lesser amount required by federal law and established by the department by rule: PROVIDED, That no new health care facility may be initiated as an institutional health service.

(13) "Major medical equipment" means medical equipment which is used for the provision of medical and other health services and which costs in excess of one million dollars, adjusted by the department by rule to reflect changes in the United States department of commerce composite construction cost index; or a lesser amount required by federal law and established by the department by rule; except that such term does not include medical equipment acquired by or on behalf of a clinical laboratory to provide clinical laboratory services if the clinical laboratory is independent of a physician's office and a hospital and it has been determined under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act to meet the requirements of paragraphs (10) and (11) of section 1861(s) of such act.

(14) "Person" means an individual, a trust or estate, a partnership, a corporation (including associations, joint stock companies, and insurance companies), the state, or a political subdivision or instrumentality of the state, including a municipal corporation or a hospital district.

(15) "Provider" generally means a health care professional or an organization, institution, or other entity providing health care but the precise definition for this term shall be established by rule of the department, consistent with federal law.

(16) "Public health" means the level of well-being of the general population; those actions in a community necessary to preserve, protect, and promote the health of the people for which government is responsible; and the governmental system developed to guarantee the preservation of the health of the people.

(17) "Regional health council" means a public regional planning body or a private nonprofit corporation which is organized and operated in a manner that is consistent with the laws of the state and which is capable of performing each of the functions described in RCW 70.38.085. A regional health council shall have a governing body for health planning which is composed of a majority (but not more than sixty percent of the members) of persons who are residents of the health service area served by the entity; who are consumers of health care; who are broadly representative of the social, economic, linguistic, and racial populations, and geographic areas of the health service area, and major purchasers of health care; and who are not, nor within the twelve months preceding appointment have been, providers of health care. The remainder of the members shall be residents of the health service area served by the agency who are providers of health care.

(18) "Regional health plan" means a document which provides at least a statement of health goals and priorities for the health service area. In addition, it sets forth the number, type, and distribution of health facilities, services, and manpower needed within the health service area to meet the goals of the plan.

(19) "State health plan" means a document developed in accordance with RCW 70.38.065.

Sec. 5. Section 10, chapter 161, Laws of 1979 ex. sess. as last amended by section 21, chapter 288, Laws of 1984 and RCW 70.38.105 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) The department is authorized and directed to implement the certificate of need program in this state pursuant to the provisions of this chapter.

(2) There shall be a state certificate of need program which is administered consistent with the requirements of federal law as necessary to the receipt of federal funds by the state.

(3) No person shall engage in any undertaking which is subject to certificate of need review under subsection (4) of this section without first having received from the department either a certificate of need or an exception granted in accordance with this chapter.

(4) The following shall be subject to certificate of need review under this chapter:

(a) The construction, development, or other establishment of a new health care facility;

(b) ((~~The sale, purchase, or lease of part or all of any existing hospital as defined in RCW 70.39.020;~~

~~(c)~~)) Any capital expenditure by or on behalf of a health care facility which substantially changes the services of the facility after January 1, 1981, provided that the substantial changes in services are specified by the department in rule;

((~~(d)~~)) (c) Any capital expenditure by or on behalf of a health care facility which exceeds the expenditure minimum as defined by RCW 70.38.025. However, a capital expenditure which is not subject to certificate of need review under (a), (b), ((~~(c)~~)) (d), (e), or (f)((~~, or (g)~~)) of this subsection and which is solely for any one or more of the following is not subject to certificate of need review except to the extent required by the federal government as a condition to receipt of federal assistance and does not substantially affect patient charges:

(i) Communications and parking facilities;

(ii) Mechanical, electrical, ventilation, heating, and air conditioning systems;

(iii) Energy conservation systems;

(iv) Repairs to, or the correction of, deficiencies in existing physical plant facilities which are necessary to maintain state licensure;

(v) Acquisition of equipment, including data processing equipment, which is not or will not be used in the direct provision of health services;

(vi) Construction which involves physical plant facilities, including administrative and support facilities, which are not or will not be used for the provision of health services;

(vii) Acquisition of land; and

(viii) Refinancing of existing debt;

((~~(e)~~)) (d) A change in bed capacity of a health care facility which increases the total number of licensed beds or redistributes beds among facility and service categories of acute care, skilled nursing, intermediate care, and boarding home care if the bed redistribution is to be effective for a period in excess of six months;

((~~(f)~~)) (e) Acquisition of major medical equipment((:

~~(i)~~)) if the equipment will be owned by or located in a health care facility; ((or

(ii) If, after January 1, 1981, the equipment is not to be owned by or located in a health care facility, the department finds consistent with federal regulations the equipment will be used to provide services for hospital inpatients, or the person acquiring such equipment did not notify the department of the intent to acquire such equipment at least thirty days before entering into contractual arrangements for such acquisition;

~~(g)~~)) (f) Any new institutional health services which are offered in or through a health care facility, and which were not offered on a regular basis by, in, or through such health care facility within the twelve-month period prior to the time such services would be offered; and

((~~(h)~~)) (g) Any expenditure by or on behalf of a health care facility in excess of the expenditure minimum made in preparation for any undertaking under subsection (4) of this section and any arrangement or commitment made for financing such undertaking. Expenditures of preparation shall include expenditures for architectural designs, plans, working drawings, and specifications. The department may issue certificates of need permitting predevelopment expenditures, only, without authorizing any subsequent undertaking with respect to which such predevelopment expenditures are made.

(5) No person may divide a project in order to avoid review requirements under any of the thresholds specified in this section.

Sec. 6. Section 11, chapter 161, Laws of 1979 ex. sess. as last amended by section 22, chapter 288, Laws of 1984 and RCW 70.38.115 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) Certificates of need shall be issued, denied, suspended, or revoked by the designee of the secretary of the department in accord with the provisions of this chapter and rules of the department which establish review procedures and criteria for the certificate of need program.

(2) Criteria for the review of certificate of need applications, except as provided in subsection (3) of this section for health maintenance organizations, shall include but not be limited to consideration of the following:

(a) The relationship of the health services being reviewed to the applicable health plans;

(b) The need that the population served or to be served by such services has for such services;

(d) The financial feasibility and the probable impact of the proposal on the cost of and charges for providing health services in the community to be served((, including findings and recommendations of the Washington state hospital commission in the case of applications submitted by hospitals. An application by a hospital shall be denied if the state hospital commission does not recommend approval, unless the secretary provides the commission with a written statement setting forth the reason or reasons, and citing the applicable subsection or subsections of this section, for approving an application that the commission has determined to be not feasible));

(e) In the case of health services to be provided, (i) the availability of alternative uses of project resources for the provision of other health services, (ii) the extent to which such proposed services will be accessible to all residents of the area to be served, and (iii) the need for and the availability in the community of services and facilities for osteopathic and allopathic physicians and their patients. The department shall consider the application in terms of its impact on existing and proposed institutional training programs for doctors of osteopathy and medicine at the student, internship, and residency training levels;

(f) In the case of a construction project, the costs and methods of the proposed construction, including the cost and methods of energy provision, and the probable impact of the construction project reviewed (i) on the cost of providing health services by the person proposing such construction project and (ii) on the cost and charges to the public of providing health services by other persons;

(g) The special needs and circumstances of osteopathic hospitals, nonallopathic services and children's hospitals;

(h) Improvements or innovations in the financing and delivery of health services which foster cost containment and serve to promote quality assurance and cost-effectiveness;

(i) In the case of health services proposed to be provided, the efficiency and appropriateness of the use of existing services and facilities similar to those proposed;

(j) In the case of existing services or facilities, the quality of care provided by such services or facilities in the past; and

(k) In the case of hospital certificate of need applications, whether the hospital meets or exceeds the regional average level of charity care, as determined by the hospital commission.

(3) A certificate of need application of a health maintenance organization or a health care facility which is controlled, directly or indirectly, by a health maintenance organization, shall be approved by the department if the department finds:

(a) Approval of such application is required to meet the needs of the members of the health maintenance organization and of the new members which such organization can reasonably be expected to enroll; and

(b) The health maintenance organization is unable to provide, through services or facilities which can reasonably be expected to be available to the organization, its institutional health services in a reasonable and cost-effective manner which is consistent with the basic method of operation of the organization and which makes such services available on a long-term basis through physicians and other health professionals associated with it.

A health care facility (or any part thereof) or medical equipment with respect to which a certificate of need was issued under this subsection may not be sold or leased and a controlling interest in such facility or equipment or in a lease of such facility or equipment may not be acquired unless the department issues a certificate of need approving the sale, acquisition, or lease.

(4) The decision of the department on a certificate of need application shall be consistent with the state health plan in effect, except in emergency circumstances which pose a threat to the public health. The department in making its final decision may issue a conditional certificate of need if it finds that the project is justified only under specific circumstances. The conditions shall directly relate to the project being reviewed. The conditions may be released if it can be substantiated that the conditions are no longer valid and the release of such conditions would be consistent with the purposes of this chapter.

(5) Criteria adopted for review in accordance with subsection (2) of this section may vary according to the purpose for which the particular review is being conducted or the type of health service reviewed.

(6) The department shall specify information to be required for certificate of need applications. Within fifteen days of receipt of the application, the department shall request additional information considered necessary to the application or start the review process. Applicants may decline to submit requested information through written notice to the department, in which case review starts on the date of receipt of the notice. Applications may be denied or limited because of failure to submit required and necessary information.

(7) Concurrent review is for the purpose of comparative analysis and evaluation of competing or similar projects in order to determine which of the projects may best meet identified needs. Categories of projects subject to concurrent review include at least new health care facilities, new services, and expansion of existing health care facilities. The department shall specify time periods for the submission of applications for certificates of need subject to concurrent review, which shall not exceed ninety days. Review of concurrent applications shall start fifteen days after the conclusion of the time period for submission of applications subject to concurrent review. Concurrent review periods shall be limited to one hundred fifty days, except as provided for in rules adopted by the department authorizing and limiting amendment during the course of the review, or for an unresolved pivotal issue declared by the department.

(8) Review periods for certificate of need applications other than those subject to concurrent review shall be limited to ninety days. Review periods may be extended up to thirty days if needed by a review agency, and for unresolved pivotal issues the department may extend up to an additional thirty days. A review may be extended in any case if the applicant agrees to the extension.

(9) The department or a designated regional health council shall conduct a public hearing on a certificate of need application if requested unless the review is expedited or subject to emergency review. The department by rule shall specify the period of time within which a public hearing must be requested and requirements related to public notice of the hearing, procedures, recordkeeping and related matters.

(10) Any applicant denied a certificate of need or whose certificate of need has been suspended or revoked shall be afforded an opportunity for administrative review in accordance with *chapter 34.04 RCW and a hearing shall be held within one hundred twenty days of a request therefor. An administrative law judge shall review the decision of the secretary's designee and render a proposed decision for consideration by the secretary in accordance with chapter 34.12 RCW or remand the matter to the secretary's designee for further consideration. The secretary's final decision is subject to review by the superior court as provided in chapter ((~~34.04~~)) 34.05 RCW.

(11) The department may establish procedures and criteria for reconsideration of decisions.

(12) An amended certificate of need shall be required for the following modifications of an approved project:

(a) A new service;

(b) An expansion of a service beyond that originally approved;

(d) A significant reduction in the scope of a project without a commensurate reduction in the cost of the project, or a cost increase (as represented in bids on a construction project or final cost estimates acceptable to the person to whom the certificate of need was issued) if the total of such increases exceeds twelve percent or fifty thousand dollars, whichever is greater, over the maximum capital expenditure approved. The review of reductions or cost increases shall be restricted to the continued conformance of the project with the review criteria pertaining to financial feasibility and cost containment.

(13) An application for a certificate of need for a capital expenditure which is determined by the department to be required to eliminate or prevent imminent safety hazards or correct violations of applicable licensure and accreditation standards shall be approved.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. This act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety, or support of the state government and its existing public institutions, and shall take effect immediately.