Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont lately signed into law Public Act No. 19-117 (PA 19-117), which includes provisions affecting fitness care vendors, such as revisions to the sanatorium provider tax, a prohibition on non-compete agreements for domestic care people, and expansion to Connecticut’s cutting-edge marvel bill law. Highlights of PA 19-117, such as the effective dates for each provision, are defined below:
Elimination of Tax Rate Decrease
Under the present law, the tax fees for inpatient and outpatient sanatorium services have been scheduled to be lower starting in the financial year (FY) 2020. PA 19-117 eliminates this planned decrease and, as a substitute, maintains the prevailing tax price at FY 2019 charges. However, the tax base is to be adjusted every year so that the taxes are primarily based on the clinic’s net revenue three years before the start of the current biennium. For example, the taxes for FY 2020 and 2021 might be based totally on the hospital’s net sales in FY 2017.
Successor Tax Liability in Hospital Mergers, Consolidations or Reorganizations
Under PA 19-117, if a health center situation to the health center issuer, tax merges, consolidates, or reorganizes, the surviving health center is answerable for the overall tax imposed on the merging, consolidating, or reorganizing hospitals. The surviving sanatorium must also expect exquisite tax liabilities from durations before the merger, consolidation, or reorganization.
Refunds for Exceeding Federally Permissible Tax Rate
Suppose, for any monetary year, the Department of Social Services (DSS) determines that the powerful sanatorium provider tax charge for inpatient services is handed the rate allowed beneath federal regulation. In that case, the new regulation calls for the Department of Revenue Services (DRS) to refund hospitals the excess tax collected. Each health center’s refund should be in a share of the quantity of inpatient hospital provider internet revenue on which it became taxed. Beginning on July 1, 2020, every health facility issued to the company tax must file yearly to DSS the quantity of health facility issuer tax it paid and its net inpatient clinic offerings sales for the financial 12 months years earlier than the reporting date. Within 90 days after receiving completed reviews from all such hospitals, DSS will notify DRS of the refund quantity because every medical institution and DRS will have faculty with ideal refunds. Interest will now not be added to the refunds.
Prohibition on Non-Compete Agreements with Home Health Workers
PA 19-117 creates a new law prohibiting non-compete agreements with homemakers, companions, or home health offerings. The new regulation applies to any settlement that restricts a person’s right to provide homemaker, associate, or domestic fitness services in any geographic vicinity of the state for any period or to a selected person. Under PA 19-117, such non-compete agreements are against public policy, void, and unenforceable.
A “surprise bill” is currently an invoice for non-emergency health care offerings provided via an out-of-community provider at an in-network facility all through a provider or system executed using an in-network provider or formerly legal via the fitness insurer. The person receiving the offerings did no longer choose to acquire the offerings from the out-of-community issuer. Under current law, if a character with medical insurance receives a wonder bill, they must pay handiest the coinsurance, copayment, deductible, or different out-of-pocket prices that might be observed if an in-network provider has furnished the services. It’s far a contravention of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act for an issuer to request from an affected person any amount for a wonder bill beyond the coinsurance, copayment, deductible, or different out-of-pocket cost. As well-known, the fitness insurer should reimburse the out-of-network provider or the insured, as applicable, for the health care offerings at the in-community charge.
This rule creates a community medical expert certification program administrated through DPH. Under PA 19-117, community medical examiners are public fitness outreach experts who liaise between network members and fitness care vendors and provide services, including counseling, social support, care coordination, and basic screenings of risks connected with social determinants of fitness. Beginning January 1, 2020, the new law calls for each person who uses the name “licensed community medical examiner” to be licensed through DPH. The new law (1) establishes certification requirements and units preliminary certification and renewal prices, (2) establishes a persevering with schooling requirement, and (3) permits DPH to take enforcement moves in opposition to certificate holders who fail to conform with commonplace standards.
Under present regulations (including hospitals) that worry about children, toddlers must administer screenings each little one to check for certain diseases and unusual situations. The Department of Public Health (DPH) administers this Newborn Screening Program and publishes a list of the peculiar conditions for which the establishments should display screen newborns. PA 19-117 broadens DPH’s newborn screening application to include any sickness indexed on the federal Recommended Uniform Screening Panel, subject to the Office of Policy and Management’s approval.
PA 19-117 calls for DSS to implement one or more fee-based totally fee methodologies for hospitals collaborating with the Connecticut Medicaid software. While the law does now not proscribe the unique fee-based methods, it states that DSS may additionally consist of strategies designed to (1) reduce inpatient hospital readmissions, (2) reduce needless caesarian section deliveries, take appropriate movements to reduce preterm deliveries and enhance obstetrical care effects; and (3) address outpatient infusions concerning high-cost medicinal drugs through overall performance-primarily based bills. DSS has been authorized to segment these new price methodologies over the years. This new regulation also requires DSS to lessen the full relevant Medicaid fee via 15% for each sanatorium “readmission.” Readmission occurs when, within 30 days following discharge from an applicable sanatorium, someone is readmitted for remark services for the identical or comparable prognosis(es).
Under Connecticut’s current breach notification law, any individual carrying out commercial enterprise in the nation which, within the regular path of enterprise, owns, licenses, or keeps automatic facts that contain “nonpublic information” has to (1) notify Connecticut citizens inside the occasion that such resident’s private information is breached or is reasonably believed to were breached, and (2) offer as a minimum two years of discovering safety services to individuals laid low with a breach. PA 19-117 expands the present breach notification regulation to use in instances of a breach or suspected breach of private information or “nonpublic information.” Nonpublic facts are information that isn’t always publicly available, not associated with age or gender, and that (1) might materially affect a licensee’s business, operation, or protection if disclosed; (2) is created or derived from a customer or fitness care issuer and concerns behavioral, intellectual, or bodily health, or health care offerings or bills; or (3) issues a purchaser’s call, variety, or different identifiable statistics which can become aware of a consumer when used in combination with different facts consisting of an account range, credit score or debit card quantity, biometric records, motive force’s license or Social Security quantity.
