Washington Administrative Code
Title 246 - Health, Department of
FACILITY STANDARDS AND LICENSING
Chapter 246-310 - Certificate of need
Section 246-310-800 - Kidney disease treatment centers-Definitions

(1) "Affiliate" or "affiliated" means:

(2) "Base year" means the most recent calendar year for which December 31st data is available as of the letter of intent submission date from the Network's Modality Report.

(3) "Capital expenditures," as defined by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), means expenditures made to acquire tangible long-lived assets. Long-lived assets represent property and equipment used in a company's operations that have an estimated useful life greater than one year. Acquired long-lived assets are recorded at acquisition cost and include all costs incurred necessary to bring the asset to working order. Capital expenditure includes:

(4) "Concurrent review" means the process by which applications competing to provide services in the same planning area are reviewed simultaneously by the department.

(5) "Dialysis facility report (DFR)" means the kidney disease treatment center reports produced annually for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The DFR is provided to individual dialysis centers and contains summary data on each center compiled from multiple sources. The DFR facilitates comparison of patient characteristics, treatment patterns, transplantation rates, hospitalization rates, and mortality rates to local and national averages.

(6) "Dialysis facility compare (DFC) report" means the kidney dialysis facility compare quarterly report that is produced by CMS and posted on the medicare DFC website. This report provides information about statistically measurable practice patterns in kidney disease treatment centers including, but not limited to, mortality, hospitalization, late shifts, and availability of home training.

(7) "End-of-year data" means data contained in the fourth quarter modality report or successor report from the Network.

(8) "End-of-year in-center patients" means the number of in-center hemodialysis (HD) and self-dialysis training patients receiving in-center kidney dialysis at the end of the calendar year based on end-of-year data.

(9) "Exempt isolation station" means one certificate of need approved certified station per center dedicated to patients requiring medically necessary isolation. This station may not be used for nonisolation treatments. This one approved station is included in the kidney disease treatment center's total CMS certified station count. However, for purposes of certificate of need, this one isolation station is not included in the center's station count for projecting future station need or in calculating existing station use. Providers may operate more than one isolation station, but only one is excluded from the center's station count for purposes of projecting future station need and in calculating existing station use.

(10) "Kidney disease treatment center" or "kidney dialysis facility" means any place, institution, building or agency or a distinct part thereof equipped and operated to provide services, including outpatient dialysis. In no case will all stations at a given kidney disease treatment center or kidney dialysis facility be designated as self-dialysis training stations. For purposes of these rules, kidney disease treatment center and kidney dialysis facility have the same meaning.

(11) "Maximum treatment floor area square footage" means the sum of (a), (b), (c), and (d) of this subsection:

(12) "Network" means end stage renal disease (ESRD) Network 16.

(13) "Operational" means the date when the kidney disease treatment center provides its first dialysis treatment in newly approved certificate of need stations, including relocated stations.

(14) "Patients per station" means the reported number of in-center patients at the kidney disease treatment center divided by counted certificate of need approved stations. The results are not rounded up. For example, 4.49 is not rounded to 4.5.

(15) "Permanent bed station" means a bed that would commonly be used in a health care setting.

(16) "Planning area" or "service area" means an individual geographic area designated by the department for which kidney dialysis station need projections are calculated. For purposes of kidney dialysis projects, planning area and service area have the same meaning. Each county is considered a separate planning area, except for the planning subareas identified for King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Spokane counties. If the United States Postal Service (USPS) changes zip codes in the defined planning areas, the department will update areas to reflect the revisions to the zip codes to be included in the certificate of need definitions, analyses and decisions. Post office boxes are not included.

(17) "Projection year" means the fifth calendar year after the base year. For example, reviews using 2015 end-of-year data as the base year will use 2020 as the projection year.

(18) "Quality incentive program" or "QIP" means the end-stage renal disease (ESRD) quality incentive program (QIP) administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The QIP measures kidney disease treatment center performance based on outcomes assessed through specific performance and quality measures that are combined to create a total performance score (TPS). The QIP and TPS are updated annually and are publicly available on the CMS DFC website.

(19) "Quintile" means any of five groups into which a population can be divided according to the distribution of values of a particular variable.

(20) "Resident in-center patients" means in-center hemo-dialysis (HD) patients who reside within the planning area. If more than 50 percent of a kidney disease treatment center's patients reside outside Washington state, these out-of-state patients would be considered resident in-center patients.

(21) "Shelled space" means space that is constructed to meet future needs; it is a space enclosed by a building shell but otherwise unfinished inside unless the space designated for future needs is part of an existing, finished building prior to an applicant's proposed project. In that case, there is no requirement to degrade the space. The shelled space may include:

(22) "Temporary emergency situation" means a temporary emergency situation as defined in RCW 70.38.280 and WAC 246-310-825.

(23) "Training services" means services provided by a kidney disease treatment center to train patients for home dialysis. Home training spaces are not used to provide in-center dialysis treatments. Spaces used for training are not included in the center's station count for projecting future station need or in calculating existing station use. Stations previously designated as "training stations" may be used as in-center dialysis stations and will continue to be included in the center's current station count for projecting future station need or in calculating existing station use. For the purpose of awarding the point for home training in the superiority criteria section (WAC 246-310-823), training services include the following: