At GNYHA's Health Planning Committee meeting held on March 19, 2003, the New York State Department of Health (DOH) presented its new Certificate of Need (CON) application. The application updates and replaces the nine documents that DOH uses currently for full, administrative, and limited CON reviews of health care facilities governed by Articles 28, 36, and 40 of the Public Health Law and those governed by Article 7 of the Social Services Law. DOH's current CON application had not been wholly updated since 1986. The application was the result of a collaborative effort on the part of DOH's CON Revision Workgroup, on which GNYHA served. The revised application will be available on DOH's Web site by the end of March. Until December 31, 2003, facilities will be permitted to use either the current CON application or the revised application. DOH plans to eventually permit CON applications to be submitted electronically.

Other Planning News: DOH has released another draft of the permanent part-time clinic regulations. The regulations would entirely prohibit part-time clinics from operating in private physicians' offices. The regulations would also limit the number of part-time clinic visits provided by an operator. The annual aggregate number or amount of outpatient visits provided by an operator in all of its part-time clinic sites in the aggregate would not be permitted to exceed 20% of all outpatient services visits provided by such operator in all of its Article 28 sites. (At least 80% of all outpatient visit services provided by an operator would be required to be provided at its main site of operations and/or approved extension clinics.) The regulations were discussed at the March 20, 2003, State Hospital Review and Planning Council Codes Committee meeting and will continue to be discussed by the Committee. For a copy of the draft regulations, please call Doris R. Varlese at GNYHA.