Session Laws

Whereas, The deferred operation of this act would tend to defeat its purpose, which is to immediately provide for a reduction in the commonwealth's cost of providing care to certain patients, therefore it is hereby declared to be an emergency law, necessary for the immediate preservation of the public convenience.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Chapter 6A of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 37A, as appearing in the 1988 Official Edition, the following section:-

Section 37B. (a) Any nonacute hospital which is licensed under section fifty-one of chapter one hundred and eleven or section nineteen of chapter twenty-nine to provide psychiatric services, which is a signatory or becomes a signatory to a memorandum of understanding with the department of mental health which was signed by the commissioner of the department of mental health on March twenty-eighth, nineteen hundred and eighty-nine and which, subject to the provisions of paragraph (e), offers from year to year to the department of mental health to provide services in accordance with said memorandum shall, at its election, be entitled to approval by the commission of its gross patient service revenues and charge modification requests in accordance with this section. Any nonacute hospital which provides psychiatric services may, notwithstanding whether it is a signatory to such memorandum, with the mutual written agreement of the commissioner of mental health or his designee enter into one or more memoranda of understandings with the department of mental health which may by their own terms alter or supersede the memorandum of understanding referenced in this paragraph and be entitled to the election provided for by this paragraph.

(b) For each nonacute psychiatric hospital which exercises the election provided for by paragraph (a), the commission shall, notwithstanding the provisions of sections thirty-seven and thirty-nine, approve maximum allowable gross patient service revenue and related charges for each fiscal year on a prospective basis which shall be no less than the reasonable financial requirements approvable pursuant to section thirty-seven multiplied by the ratio of gross patient service revenue divided by reasonable financial requirements which was either approved or, subsequent to any appeal, was approvable by the commission for any fiscal year prior to the hospital's fiscal year nineteen hundred and ninety.

(c) Any nonacute hospital which provides psychiatric services which is entitled to the election provided by this section may exercise its election by filing a copy of a memorandum of understanding referenced in paragraph (a) of this section with the commission together with a designation of the fiscal year to be used for the purpose of calculating the ratio referenced in paragraph (b).

(d) Nothing contained herein shall be construed or applied to effect rates of payment established under section thirty-two of chapter six A for services provided by psychiatric hospitals to recipients of public assistance or services provided to any person for which any agency of the commonwealth is financially responsible.

(e) The commissioner of the department of mental health may, at any time terminate a memorandum of understanding referenced in paragraph (a). Upon notice of such termination the election provided for by this section shall terminate. Eighteen months subsequent to the effective date of this section the commissioner of the department of mental health shall make a report to the general court as to whether he desires to continue the memoranda of understanding provided for by this section. In the event the commissioner notifies the general court he does not desire continuation of such memoranda of understanding, this section shall cease and become ineffective six months thereafter and any nonacute psychiatric hospital may, during said six month period phase out its participation with the department of mental health. In the event the commissioner files a notification that he does desire to continue such memorandum of understanding this section shall remain in full force and effect.

SECTION 2. Notwithstanding the provisions of any general or special law to the contrary, this act shall become effective for each private psychiatric hospital's nineteen hundred and ninety fiscal year. In the event this act is enacted subsequent to the commencement of a private psychiatric hospital's nineteen hundred and ninety fiscal year it shall have retroactive effect and apply to that year.

SECTION 3. This act shall expire on June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and ninety-three.