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Ohio Laws and Rules
(A) This rule prescribes criteria and procedures for the director to follow in designating nursing home placement clearinghouses pursuant to division (F) of section 3702.522 of the Revised Code. Each clearinghouse designated under this rule shall perform the following functions:
(1) Maintain a complete and accurate list of licensed nursing homes and other long-term care facilities within the county served by the clearinghouse. Any nursing home or other long-term care facility may list with a nursing home placement clearinghouse the services it provides and the types of patients it is approved for and equipped to serve. The clearinghouse shall maintain any such information furnished by long-term care facilities and shall make reasonable efforts to obtain the information from all facilities in the county;
(2) Maintain information concerning out-of-county long-term care facilities that provide care for specialized medical conditions, when the clearinghouse is able to obtain this information;
(3) To the extent that the information is furnished by a long-term care facility, maintain information about the availability of beds at the facility, including the availability of skilled nursing beds and of beds used to provide care for specialized medical conditions;
(4) Keep the information specified in paragraphs (A)(1), (A)(2) and (A)(3) of this rule as current as possible. The clearinghouse shall make reasonable efforts to update its information at least every one hundred eighty days; and
(5) Assist hospitals in the county in placing patients no longer requiring acute care by providing information about possible placement options that is maintained by the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse shall have hours of operation reasonably necessary to perform its functions. No clearinghouse designated under this rule may charge a mandatory user fee to a hospital granted a certificate of need for recategorization of beds under section 3702.522 of the Revised Code. Clearinghouses also may maintain information about other providers of care to patients after hospitalization, provide bed availability information to other persons and agencies and furnish other placement and referral services.
(B) Any public or private agency or facility may apply to the director to serve as a nursing home placement clearinghouse. Each applicant for designation as a nursing home placement clearinghouse shall provide the following information:
(1) The name, address and telephone number of the applicant and of any person or agency preparing the application on behalf of the applicant;
(2) The location at which the applicant proposes to operate the nursing home placement clearinghouse;
(3) The counties for which the applicant proposes to operate a clearinghouse;
(4) The qualifications of the applicant to serve as a clearinghouse, including the qualifications of the applicant's governing body and its personnel and a description of the applicant's previous experience in performing services similar to those provided by a nursing home placement clearinghouse;
(5) A detailed description of the applicant's projected annual operating costs and sources of funding;
(6) Documents from health care providers in the relevant county or counties indicating willingness to participate in the applicant's clearinghouse or supporting the application; and
(7) A detailed description of the services that the applicant proposes to provide and the manner in which they will be provided. The director may request any additional information necessary to review the application. The applicant shall provide any such information requested by the director.
(C) After receiving an application for designation as a nursing home placement clearinghouse, the director shall provide written notice to all long-term care facilities and hospitals in the county. The notice shall contain:
(1) The name and address of the applicant;
(2) The proposed location of the clearinghouse and the county or counties to be served;
(3) A statement that any person or agency may provide written comments on the application to the director by a date specified by the director, which shall not be less than thirty days after the last date on which notice was mailed under paragraph (C) of this rule.
(D) The director may designate one or more clearinghouses under this rule, but in no event shall there be more than one nursing home placement clearinghouse in each county.
(1) The director shall decide whether or not to designate an applicant as the nursing home placement clearinghouse for one or more of the counties for which application was made by determining whether the applicant has demonstrated the ability to perform the functions of a nursing home placement clearinghouse effectively. In particular, the director shall consider the scope of services to be provided by the clearinghouse and the clearinghouse's methods for assuring that the information that it maintains is complete and current. The decision shall be based upon review of the application, additional information submitted by the applicant, support by health care providers, comments received during the review and other pertinent information.
(2) The director shall encourage competition for designation as a nursing home placement clearinghouse for a given geographic area. If competing applications are filed for a particular county, the director shall review the applications comparatively and shall designate the applicant, if any, that demonstrates that it can serve the long-term care placement needs of the county's hospitals most effectively.
(E) The director may revoke a designation granted under this rule upon a determination that the clearinghouse is not functioning effectively or that another applicant for designation would serve the long-term care placement needs of the county better. The director shall provide a clearinghouse with an opportunity to respond to the director's proposal to revoke its designation before making a final decision on the matter.
(F) If an appropriate clearinghouse has been designated, each hospital granted a certificate of need after August 5, 1989, to recategorize hospital beds as skilled nursing beds shall, and every other hospital may, utilize the nursing home placement clearinghouse prior to admitting a patient to a skilled nursing bed within the hospital and prior to keeping a patient in a skilled nursing bed in excess of thirty days. For the purposes of this paragraph, an appropriate clearinghouse is a clearinghouse that has been designated to serve the county in which the patient wishes to be placed or that the hospital knows could assist in placing the patient in that county. Nothing in this rule shall be construed to require a clearinghouse to prohibit any hospital or other person or agency from using the services of a nursing home placement clearinghouse.
(G) The director shall publish at least annually to all hospitals a list of the designated nursing home placement clearinghouses.
(H) For the purposes of this rule, "skilled nursing bed" means a bed in a facility that participates, in its entirety, in the program for health insurance for the aged and disabled established by Title XVIII of the Social Security Act, 42 U.S.C. 301, as amended (the Medicare program) as a skilled nursing facility or in that portion of a facility that participates as a skilled nursing facility.
R.C. 119.032 review dates: 04/16/2009 and 04/15/2014
Promulgated Under: 119.03
Statutory Authority: 3702.522, 3702.57
Rule Amplifies: 3702.522
Prior Effective Dates: 2/8/1990 (Emer.), 8/3/90, 9/6/99