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SB 109 - This act requires the Department of Health and Senior Services to review and revise its regulations governing hospital licensure and enforcement to promote efficiency and eliminate duplicate regulations and inspections by or on behalf of the state and federal agencies. The Department is also required to adopt regulations that require among other things: (1) Specific findings of deficiencies to refer to the specific written and publicly available standard that is the basis of the finding; (2) Consistency with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) Conditions of Participation; (3) Published guidelines for complaint investigations and a process to determine if a complaint warrants an onsite investigation; (4) Limits to a complaint investigation performed by the Department to the specific regulatory standard raised by the complaint, unless there is a documented immediate and serious threat, as defined directly and through interpretive guidelines included in hospital licensure regulations; and (5) A process to provide a hospital with a report of all complaints made against it. Hospitals and hospital personnel shall have the opportunity to participate in training sessions provided to state licensure surveyors, which shall be provided at least annually. This act also establishes specific timelines identical to those in CMS's State Operations Manual for state hospital officials to respond to a hospital regarding the status and outcome of pending investigations and possible regulatory action. The Department shall also accept a hospital inspection report from the CMS-approved organizations in lieu of the department's or other governmental organization's annual inspection report and also shall accept such hospital inspection report for licensure purposes if the accreditation inspection was conducted within three years, rather than one year, of the most recent license renewal. These provisions are substantially similar to SS/SCS/SB 621 (2012); HB 1123 (2012); and similar to HCS/HB 579 (2011). ADRIANE CROUSE
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