HOUSE BILL 240

55th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2021

INTRODUCED BY

Kelly K. Fajardo and Gregory A. Baca and Alonzo Baldonado and Joshua Sanchez and Gail Armstrong

AN ACT

RELATING TO HEALTH; CLARIFYING THE DEFINITION OF "CONTRACTING HOSPITAL" IN THE HOSPITAL FUNDING ACT.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO:

     SECTION 1. Section 4-48B-3 NMSA 1978 (being Laws 1981, Chapter 83, Section 3, as amended) is amended to read:

     "4-48B-3. DEFINITIONS.--As used in the Hospital Funding Act:

          A. "another political subdivision" means a political subdivision of New Mexico, including a municipality and a special hospital district organized under the Special Hospital District Act, but not including a county;

          B. "class A county" means a county having a population of more than two hundred thousand persons according to the last federal decennial census;

          C. "contracting hospital" means a hospital or twenty-four-hour emergency health care facility licensed as a remote location of an acute care hospital located in New Mexico that enters into a health care facilities contract with a county or counties or another political subdivision;

          D. "county" means any county of the state;

          E. "county commissioners" means the board of county commissioners of a county;

          F. "county hospital" means a hospital owned by a county;

          G. "health care facilities contract" means an agreement between a hospital or twenty-four-hour emergency health care facility licensed as a remote location of an acute care hospital and a county or counties, or between a hospital or twenty-four-hour emergency health care facility licensed as a remote location of an acute care hospital and a county or counties and another political subdivision, that provides for the payment by the county or counties of all or a portion of the proceeds of a mill levy to the hospital or twenty-four-hour emergency health care facility licensed as a remote location of an acute care hospital in exchange for the agreement by the hospital or twenty-four-hour emergency health care facility licensed as a remote location of an acute care hospital to use the funds only for nonsectarian purposes and to make available the following for the sick of the county or counties:

                (1) [hospital] facilities that admit [and] or treat patients without regard to race, sex, religion or national origin;

                (2) [hospital] facilities that include x-ray, laboratory services and a pharmacy or drug room;

                (3) adequate emergency equipment, personnel and procedures, including:

                     (a) a standby emergency power system;

                     (b) at least one person capable and authorized to initiate immediate lifesaving measures;

                     (c) facilities for emergency laboratory work, including, as a minimum, urinalysis, complete blood count, blood type and cross match; and

                     (d) diagnostic radiographic facilities;

                (4) facilities, procedures and policies for prevention, control and reporting of communicable diseases, including one or more rooms for isolation of patients having or suspected of having communicable diseases;

                (5) adequate records, including, as [a minimum] required by law, a daily census and a register of all births, deliveries, deaths, admissions, emergency room admissions, discharges, operations, outpatients, inpatients and narcotics; and

                (6) physical facilities, personnel, equipment and procedures that comply with the regulations promulgated by the public health division of the department of health, if any;

          H. "hospital governing board" means the board that governs a county hospital or the board of directors or trustees of a contracting hospital;

          I. "mill levy" means the rate of the tax, at a rate specified in the Hospital Funding Act, in terms of dollars per thousand dollars of net taxable value of property subject to taxation within the county;

          J. "municipality" means any city, town or village incorporated under a general act, special act or special charter; and

          K. "equipping" or "re-equipping" means purchase or lease of property of a character subject to the allowance for depreciation under Section 167 of the federal Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended or renumbered, and regulations promulgated in accordance with that section."

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