Support for Federally Qualified Health Centers

The bill authorizes the department of health care policy and financing (state department) to seek and accept gifts from private or public sources for the primary care fund. Upon receiving federal authorization, if the state department receives gifts designated for a federally qualified health center (FQHC) or a qualified provider, the state department is required to allocate 115% of the total amount of gifts received to the designated FQHC or qualified provider. The bill prohibits the state department from allocating money to a qualified provider if the donor is an FQHC or a qualified provider that has a direct or indirect relationship to medicaid payments and the allocation amount is positively correlated to the donation.

The bill authorizes an FQHC to establish a separate subsidiary company for the purpose of providing fee-for-service services outside of the FQHC's standard cost report if the subsidiary is providing fee-for-service services that have historically been provided and reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis, or if the state department determines that the subsidiary's reimbursements would be budget neutral. Upon receiving any necessary federal authorization, the state department is required to reimburse a subsidiary of an FQHC on a fee-for-service basis for services that are eligible for fee-for-service reimbursement. A subsidiary that receives reimbursement is authorized to pass through money received from the reimbursement directly to the FQHC operating as the subsidiary's parent corporation. Services reimbursed to an FQHC's subsidiary are excluded from the FQHC's cost report.

(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)