SENATE DOCKET, NO. 1713        FILED ON: 1/14/2009

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 570

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the Year Two Thousand Nine

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An Act relative to the community hospital in-patient psychiatric relief program..

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. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, there shall be established a program called the Community Hospital In-Patient Psychiatric Relief Program (“CHIPP”) to provide annual additional funding from the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, MassHealth Office, to community hospitals that provide inpatient psychiatric services to individuals enrolled in the MassHealth program.  The eligibility criteria for community hospitals to receive funding from the CHIPP program shall be based on hospital cost reports on file with the Commonwealth’s Division of Health Care finance and Policy (the “Division”) for the prior fiscal year.  To be eligible for funding from the CHIPP program, community hospitals must have in-patient psychiatric units that have negative operating margins for their inpatient psychiatric cost center, adjusted to exclude any grants awarded from the Essential Community Provider Trust Fund. Community hospitals may petition the Division within 90 days from the close of each hospital fiscal year, for a determination of eligibility for funding from the CHIPP program, and, if eligible, for an increase in in-patient psychiatric rates of up to 100% of cost.  Hospitals that receive funding from the CHIPP program shall maintain records of amounts received from the program and of expenditures made from such funds, and shall make such records available for inspection upon request by the Division.