Mississippi § 41-9-210 - Critical access hospitals authorized to bank licensed hospital acute care beds; banked beds may be relicensed without certificate of need.

§ 41-9-210. Critical access hospitals authorized to bank licensed hospital acute care beds; banked beds may be relicensed without certificate of need.

If a hospital seeks a new license from the department in order to be designated as a critical access hospital, the department shall maintain a record of the acute care beds of that hospital that have been delicensed as a result of that designation and continue counting those beds as part of the state’s total acute care bed count for health care planning purposes. If a critical access hospital later desires to relicense some or all of its delicensed acute care beds, it shall notify the department of its intent to increase the number of its licensed acute care beds. The department shall survey the hospital within thirty (30) days of that notice and, if appropriate, issue the hospital a new license reflecting the new contingent of beds. That change may be accomplished without the need of the hospital to seek certificate of need approval under Section 41-7-171 et seq. However, in no event may a hospital that has delicensed some of its acute care beds in order to be designated as a critical access hospital be reissued a license to operate acute care beds in excess of its acute care bed count before the delicensure of some of its beds without seeking certificate of need approval. This section shall apply to all hospitals that are designated as critical access hospitals on July 1, 2003, and all hospitals that may become designated as critical access hospitals after July 1, 2003.