The Mississippi State Department of Health recently adopted the FY 2022 Mississippi State Health Plan, Second Edition, (SHP) which includes significant changes to Certificate of Need criteria related to Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Comprehensive Medical Rehabilitation (CMR) and Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) Services. The revisions took effect Feb. 20. In this article, we break down the biggest changes.

Positron Emission Tomography

Facilities can now convert a mobile PET service site to a fixed PET site without needing to obtain a Certificate of Need (CON) for the establishment of a new service. The facility will have to submit a Determination of Non-Reviewability to the department before converting the service. The changes also include an exemption for accredited cancer centers seeking to acquire a fixed PET scanner from the equipment-to-population ratio requirement.

Comprehensive Medical Rehabilitation Services

The 2022 State Health Plan removed the “45-mile requirement” for new CMR facilities and removed the 60-bed minimum requirement for free-standing CMR facilities. This will make it easier for new CMR facilities to be established in Mississippi.

Ambulatory Surgery Center Expansion

The Board of Health revised the multispecialty ASC CON criteria to make it easier for existing multispecialty ASCs to expand. It removed the requirement that existing and licensed ASCs proposing to expand must demonstrate that all other ASCs in the planning area are meeting the optimum capacity of 800 surgeries per operating room. The revised requirements would allow an existing ASC to expand if it can demonstrate at least an average of 800 surgeries in its own operating rooms for the most recent 12-month period, regardless of the utilization of other providers in their planning area.

The department also corrected the capital expenditure threshold in Section 701.02 of the SHP. It now states that ASC services require CON review when the establishment or expansion of the services involves a capital expenditure in excess of $10 million. The previous version of the SHP incorrectly stated that the threshold was $5 million.