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New Kentucky State Health Plan Provisions for Hospital Spin-offs and Non-Emergency Transport
By: Carole D. Christian
On January 27, 2022 the Cabinet for Health and Family Services released the 2022 Update to the Kentucky State Health Plan (the “Plan”), with emergency and proposed amended regulations to implement the changes to the Plan and corresponding changes to the regulation providing for the simplified review process known as “non-substantive review.” The changes relax standards for four types of services:
- An acute care hospital may transfer up to 50% of its beds to another location within the same county under the rules for non-substantive review, if its Medicare ratings for three of the last four quarters are 3 stars or better.
- To alleviate statewide problems with non-emergency transportation, a health care facility may establish its own non-emergency class I transport service for transportation of its patients, subject to some restrictions. These applications will also be subject to non-substantive review and will receive priority in scheduling.
- Level II neonatal beds may be converted to Level III under the provisions for formal review, without regard to the otherwise-applicable need formula.
- The threshold standards for new cardiac catheterization programs have been modified to require that existing programs, rather than existing labs, have performed 550 procedures. These will also remain subject to formal review.
The relevant materials are available in the Announcements section of the Certificate of Need Office website. Public comments may be submitted on the proposed amended regulations, with a public hearing set for April 28, 2022.
If you have any questions about these changes, please contact Carole Christian.
