Section 2TTTT. (a) There shall be a Community Hospital Reinvestment Trust Fund to be expended, without further appropriation, by the secretary of health and human services. The fund shall consist of money from public and private sources, including gifts, grants and donations, interest earned on such money, any other money authorized by the general court and specifically designated to be credited to the fund and any funds provided from other sources. Money in the fund shall be used to provide annual financial support, consistent with the terms of this section, to eligible acute care hospitals. The secretary, as trustee, shall administer the fund and shall make expenditures from the fund consistent with this section.

Terms Used In Massachusetts General Laws ch. 29 sec. 2TTTT

  • Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
  • Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
  • Joint committee: Committees including membership from both houses of teh legislature. Joint committees are usually established with narrow jurisdictions and normally lack authority to report legislation.
  • Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.

(b) The secretary may incur expenses and the comptroller may certify amounts for payment in anticipation of expected receipts; provided, however, that no expenditure shall be made from the fund which shall cause the fund to be deficient at the close of a fiscal year. Revenues deposited in the fund that are unexpended at the end of a fiscal year shall not revert to the General Fund and shall be available for expenditure in the following fiscal year.

(c) The secretary shall annually direct payments from the fund to eligible acute care hospitals. To be eligible to receive payment from the fund, an acute care hospital shall be licensed under section 51 of chapter 111 and shall not be a hospital with relative prices that are at or above 120 per cent of the statewide median relative price, as determined by the center for health information analysis.

(d) In directing payments, the secretary shall allocate payments to eligible acute care hospitals based on the proportion of each eligible acute care hospital’s total gross patient service revenue to the combined gross patient service revenue of all eligible acute care hospitals in the prior hospital rate year; provided, however, that payments shall be adjusted to allocate proportionally greater payments to eligible acute care hospitals with relative prices that fall farthest below 120 per cent of the statewide median price. The secretary shall establish by regulation a formula to allocate payments pursuant to this subsection.

(e) The secretary may require as a condition of receiving payment from the fund that an eligible acute care hospital agree to an independent financial and operational audit to recommend steps to increase sustainability and efficiency of the acute care hospital.

(f) The executive office of health and human services shall promulgate regulations necessary to carry out this section.

(g) Not later than 30 days after payments are allocated to eligible acute care hospitals under this section, the secretary for health and human services shall file a report with the joint committee on health care finance and the house and senate committees on ways and means detailing the allocation and recipient of each payment.

  Previous section
Next section  
 Chapter 29 Contents