Mississippi Administrative Code
Title 15 - Mississippi Department of Health
Part 8 - Office of Health Policy and Planning
Subpart 90 - Planning and Resource Development
Chapter 05 - Acute Care Facilities and Services Overview
Section 15-8-90-05-502 - Certificate of Need Criteria and Standards for General Acute Care Facilities
Section 15-8-90-05-502.01 - Policy Statement Regarding Certificate of Need Applications for General Acute Care Hospitals and General Acute Care Beds

1. Need in Counties Without a Hospital: Ten counties in Mississippi do not have a hospital: Amite, Benton, Carroll, Humphreys, Issaquena, Itawamba, Prentiss Quitman, Smith and Tunica. Most of these counties do not have a sufficient population base to indicate a potential need for the establishment of a hospital, and all appear to receive sufficient inpatient acute care services from hospitals in adjoining counties.

2. Expedited Review: MSDH may consider an expedited review for CON applications that address only license code deficiencies, project cost overruns, and relocation of facilities or services.

3. Capital Expenditure: For the purposes of CON review, transactions which are separated in time but planned to be undertaken within twelve (12) months of each other and which are components of an overall long-range plan to meet patient care objectives shall be reviewed in their entirety without regard to their timing. For the purposes of this policy, the governing board of the facility must have duly adopted the long-range plan at least twelve (12) months prior to the submission of the CON application.

4. Addition or Conversion of Beds: No health care facility shall be authorized to add any beds or convert any beds to another category of beds without a CON.

5. Beds in Abeyance: If a health care facility has voluntarily delicensed some of its existing bed complement, it may later relicense some or all of its delicensed beds without the necessity of having to acquire a CON. MSDH shall maintain a record of the delicensing health care facility and its voluntarily delicensed beds and continue counting those beds as part of the state's total bed count for health care planning purposes.

6. Break in Services: A health care facility that has ceased to operate for a period of sixty (60) months or more shall require a CON prior to reopening.