Bill Text: HI SB2123 | 2024 | Regular Session | Amended

Hawaii Senate Bill 2123

Bill Title: Relating To Health.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-02-15 - Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to JDC/WAM. [SB2123 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2024-SB2123-Amended.html

THE SENATE	S.B. NO.	2123
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2024		S.D. 1
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

RELATING TO HEALTH.

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

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that certificate of need laws are state regulatory mechanisms for approving major capital expenditures and projects for certain health care facilities. In a state with a certificate of need program, a health planning agency or other entity must approve the creation of new health care facilities or the expansion of an existing facility's services in a specified area. The primary aim of certificate of need programs is to control health care costs by restricting duplicative services and determining whether new capital expenditures meet a community need.

The legislature finds, however, that at times, these programs fail to achieve their intended goals and instead, stifle competition by protecting incumbent providers and creating a burdensome approval process for establishing new facilities and services. Therefore, the provision of certain critical health care services, such as psychiatric services and chronic renal dialysis services, should be made available regardless of whether the certificate of need requirements are met, especially in rural or remote communities.

Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to exempt psychiatric services and chronic renal dialysis services from certificate of need requirements.

SECTION 2. Section 323D-54, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§323D-54 Exemptions from certificate of need requirements. Nothing in this part or rules with respect to the requirement for certificates of need applies to:

(1) Offices of physicians, dentists, or other practitioners of the healing arts in private practice as distinguished from organized ambulatory health care facilities, except in any case of purchase or acquisition of equipment attendant to the delivery of health care service and the instruction or supervision for any private office or clinic involving a total expenditure in excess of the expenditure minimum;

(2) Laboratories, as defined in section 321-11(12), except in any case of purchase or acquisition of equipment attendant to the delivery of health care service and the instruction or supervision for any laboratory involving a total expenditure in excess of the expenditure minimum;

(3) Dispensaries and first aid stations located within business or industrial establishments and maintained solely for the use of employees; provided [~~such~~] the facilities do not regularly provide inpatient or resident beds for patients or employees on a daily twenty-four-hour basis;

(4) Dispensaries or infirmaries in correctional or educational facilities;

(5) Dwelling establishments, such as hotels, motels, and rooming or boarding houses that do not regularly provide health care facilities or health care services;

(6) Any home or institution conducted only for those who, pursuant to the teachings, faith, or belief of any group, depend for healing upon prayer or other spiritual means;

(7) Dental clinics;

(8) Nonpatient areas of care facilities such as parking garages and administrative offices;

(9) Bed changes that involve ten per cent or ten beds of existing licensed bed types, whichever is less, of a facility's total existing licensed beds within a two-year period;

(10) Projects that are wholly dedicated to meeting the State's obligations under court orders, including consent decrees, that have already determined that need for the projects exists;

(11) Replacement of existing equipment with its modern-day equivalent;

(12) Primary care clinics under the expenditure thresholds referenced in section 323D-2;

(13) Equipment and services related to that equipment, that are primarily invented and used for research purposes as opposed to usual and customary diagnostic and therapeutic care;

(14) Capital expenditures that are required:

(A) To eliminate or prevent imminent safety hazards as defined by federal, state, or county fire, building, or life safety codes or regulations;

(B) To comply with state licensure standards;

(C) To comply with accreditation standards, compliance with which is required to receive reimbursements under Title XVIII of the Social Security Act or payments under a state plan for medical assistance approved under Title XIX of such Act;

(15) Extended care adult residential care homes and assisted living facilities; [or]

(16) Psychiatric services; provided that for purposes of this paragraph, "psychiatric services" means services for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness or mental disorders in persons;

(17) Chronic renal dialysis services; provided that for purposes of this paragraph, "chronic renal dialysis services" means services for the treatment of irreversible kidney failure involving the removal of waste substance from a patient's blood by hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis; or

[~~(16)~~] (18) Other facilities or services that the agency through the statewide council chooses to exempt, by rules pursuant to section 323D-62."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

Report Title:

Health; Certificate of Need Program; Psychiatric Services; Chronic Renal Dialysis; Exemption

Description:

Exempts psychiatric services and chronic renal dialysis services from certificate of need requirements. (SD1)

The summary description of legislation appearing on this page is for informational purposes only and is not legislation or evidence of legislative intent.