Massachusetts Public Health Council approves hospital occupancy reporting requirements

On Friday, May 3, 2024, the Massachusetts Public Health Council (PHC) approved emergency changes to 105 CMR 130,000 requiring hospitals to report occupancy data to the Department of Health. This requirement expands data reporting that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In April 2020, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services began collecting daily data to understand stress, healthcare system capacity, and the number of patients hospitalized due to COVID-19. On September 2, 2020, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services made reporting part of their eligibility requirements. To streamline data reporting requirements for hospitals, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health was certified to collect the federal data and report on behalf of the hospitals. By doing this, the department was able to submit one daily request that met both state data needs and federal reporting requirements.

This data was used to inform the department’s COVID-19 response and also provided the department with data it used to conduct planning and coordination across the Massachusetts health care system. The department claims the data will help the department monitor trends in overall hospital capacity, identify and designate appropriate hospital capacity for each region, and respond to emergency capacity needs within the hospital system.

The federal government has ended the reporting requirement for hospitals as of April 30, 2024. The Department is promulgating a new section of the Hospital Licensing Regulation to require ongoing state reporting requirements to assist the Department in monitoring hospital capacity in the Commonwealth.

The COVID-19 reporting requirements include more than 100 data elements. The new regulation eliminates the majority of required data elements and focuses on data related to bed capacity in Massachusetts hospitals.

The regulation requires hospitals to report:

• Staffed beds according to licensed bed type;
• Occupied beds per licensed bed type; And
• Patient demographics for the patients in these beds.

Through guidance, the department identified the specific elements and how hospitals should report the data. The regulation requires acute hospitals, defined as a “hospital with a majority of medical-surgical, pediatric, obstetric and maternity beds,” to submit data for each day, with data submitted at least weekly. This definition of acute hospital also includes rehabilitation hospitals. Non-acute hospitals, which are all licensed hospitals that are not acute hospitals, must provide data at least once a year (in November). For acute hospitals, the first data transmission is scheduled for Tuesday, May 7, 2024, with capacity data for Sunday, April 28, 2024 through Saturday, May 4, 2024.

As an emergency amendment, the regulation will take effect immediately after submission to the minister. The ordinance will remain in effect for three months while the department completes the rulemaking process. During that time, a public hearing and comment period will take place. The public hearing will take place on June 10, 2024 at 1:00 PM via a moderated conference call. Individuals wishing to comment or listen to the hearing can call 800-369-1170 and enter the access code 6410428. Comments can also be sent to (email protected) with the subject line “105 CMR 130,000: Hospital License – Data Reporting.” Written comments must be submitted no later than 5:00 PM on June 10, 2024. The department may make changes based on comments received and must finalize the regulation no later than three months after the date it was first issued.

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If you have any questions about these new changes, please contact Crystal Bloom, Rebecca Rodman or your Husch Blackwell attorney.