āIncreased Advance Notice of Service Closure
Effective January 1, 2025, SB 1300 requires a hospital that is closing a supplemental service of an inpatient psychiatric unit or perinatal unit to provide public notice of the proposed elimination at least 120 days prior to elimination, which increases the notice from the prior 90-day requirement.
Expanded Public Notice Requirements
SB 1300 expands the existing requirements of the public notice to include all of the following additional information:
- Statistically deidentified and aggregated data about the patients who received the service in the past five years, including but not limited to:
- The conditions treated
- The ethnicities of patients served, if the patient voluntarily shared their ethnicity with the hospital, and only to the extent to which the data does not disclose any personal information in a manner that would link the information disclosed to the individual to whom it pertains
- The ages of patients served
- Whether the patients served had private insurance, Medi-Cal, Medicare, or no insurance
- A justification for the facility's decision to eliminate services
- An email address for all specified entities to whom the public may submit comments
- Submission of the public notice to all contracted Medi-Cal managed care plans
Public Hearing
The hospital must hold at least one noticed public hearing within 60 days of providing the public notice of proposed service elimination and post the hearing notice and agenda alongside the public notice.
The hospital must hold the hearing within 25 miles of the facility in the county where it is located, make the hearing accessible to the public remotely, accept written public comment in advance of the hearing, reserve adequate time on the agenda for public comments provided in-person and remotely, and notify the county board of supervisors of the scheduled hearing and invite them to provide testimony on the impacts of the eliminated service to the county and community health systems.
The information in this AFL is a brief summary of the provisions of SB 1300. Facilities are responsible for following all applicable laws. CDPH's failure to expressly notify facilities of statutory or regulatory requirements does not relieve facilities of their responsibility for following all laws and regulations. Facilities should refer to the full text of all applicable sections of HSC and the California Code of Regulations to ensure compliance.
For questions concerning this AFL, please contact your local CDPH district office.
Sincerely,
Original signed by Chelsea Driscoll
Chelsea Driscoll
Acting Deputy Directorā