New Mexico Administrative Code
Title 13 - INSURANCE
Chapter 10 - HEALTH INSURANCE
Part 9 - MINIMUM HEALTHCARE PROTECTION
Section 13.10.9.7 - DEFINITIONS

A. "Group" means a group of fewer than twenty members at initial enrollment formed for purposes other than obtaining insurance coverage. Where a group is an employer, group shall mean any person, firm, corporation, partnership or association actively engaged in business which, on at least fifty percent of its working days during the preceding year, employed fewer than twenty employees.

B. "Home healthcare" as defined in Section 59A-22-36D NMSA 1978, means health services provided on a part-time, intermittent basis to an individual confined to his or her home due to physical illness.

C. "Hospital" means a facility which is maintained by the state or any political subdivision of the state or any place which is currently licensed as an acute care hospital by the department of health and has accommodations for resident bed patients, a licensed professional registered nurse always on duty or call, a laboratory and an operating room where surgical operations are performed, but the term does not include convalescent, nursing or rest homes or facilities primarily for the treatment of substance abuse.

D. "Medicare" means the federal Health Insurance for the Aged Act.

E. "Nurse midwife" means any person licensed by the board of nursing as a registered nurse who is registered with the public health division of the department of health as a certified nurse midwife.

F. "Nurse practitioner" means any person licensed by the board of nursing as a registered nurse approved for expanded practice as a certified nurse practitioner pursuant to the Nursing Practice Act.

G. "Physician" means any person who holds a license provided for in Chapter 61, Article 6 or 10 NMSA 1978 authorizing the licensee to offer or undertake to diagnose, treat, operate on or prescribe for any human pain, injury, disease, deformity or physical condition.

H. "Physician assistant" means an individual duly qualified under the laws of New Mexico and the rules of the medical examiners board who is in good standing with that board and is registered to practice under the direction and supervision of a board-approved physician.

I. "Policy or plan" as defined in Section 59A-23B-3A NMSA 1978, means a healthcare benefit policy or healthcare benefit plan that the insurer, fraternal benefit society, health maintenance organization or nonprofit healthcare plan chooses to offer to individuals, families or groups of fewer than twenty members formed for purposes other than obtaining insurance coverage and that meets the requirements of Section 59A-23B-3B NMSA 1978. For purposes of this rule, policy or plan shall not mean a healthcare policy or healthcare benefit plan that an insurer, health maintenance organization, fraternal benefit society or nonprofit healthcare plan chooses to offer outside the authority of the Minimum Healthcare Protection Act.