Robert James Cimasi, MHA, ASA, CBA, AVA, CM&A, CMP
2005/10 - Beard Books
1587982757 - Paperback - 512 pages
RELEASED November 2005.

Certificate of Need (CON) has had a broad impact on healthcare providers and markets for over three decades. As the bibliographies and other resources in this book illustrate, there is a large amount of literature documenting CON regulation over the years. However, the literature is sporadic in its coverage of certain key aspects of CON including: directories and data for individual state CON programs and their impact, private studies on CON, legal and case law analyses, and several other areas. This work is the result of over two years of dedicated, focused research resulting in a comprehensive reference manual and sourcebook encompassing the statutory, regulatory, administrative, and legal aspects CON regulation from its inception in the late 1960s to the present.

The U.S. Healthcare Certificate of Need Sourcebook provides detailed descriptions, on a state-by-state basis, of CON regulatory requirements, including application thresholds, contact information and utilization data. Comprehensive bibliographies are also included with thousands of published monographs, serials, professional and trade journals, as well as general press articles, research studies, published case law, law review articles, and bar journal coverage of CON. The work also includes compendiums of Internet-based and other data resources, a thorough glossary of CON terminology, and reviews of major research organizations and economists. The book is supplemented with numerous appendices. Based on a proprietary database, the work is designed to support periodic publication updates.

The U.S. Healthcare Certificate of Need Sourcebook is unique in its scope and comprehensive treatment of the topic of CON, which is a growing and increasingly contentious competitive, political, and legal healthcare policy issue.

FOREWORD

As a young attorney in the general counsel’s office of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the late 1970s, I first learned of the federal government’s quixotic efforts to rein in the rapid growth of our nation’s healthcare industry. With its whimsical acronyms and labyrinth of regulatory protocols, the Certificate of Need (CON) program became my ticket out of government service into the private practice of law. Indeed, for much of the next ten years I found myself in the middle of a fierce battle between regulators and competing healthcare organizations fighting over who should receive the government’s franchise for the newest technology or facility to put it in.

Looking back from the vantage of today’s healthcare system, it seems remarkable that at one point almost every state had some form of CON program and had accepted the premise that governments could do a better job of matching supply and demand than the healthcare marketplace. Although a large number of states have either abandoned or fundamentally revised their CON programs, where they exist, CON programs remain a major hurdle for providers seeking to expand, modernize or reshape their service capabilities.

Success in scaling this hurdle requires a combination of resources including the expertise of professionals like Bob Cimasi who have dedicated their careers to understanding the inner workings of the regulatory process and its effect on the private sector.

When CON was a larger part of my legal practice than it is today, there was no single source containing a reliable summary of each state’s law and how it has been interpreted and applied. Nor was there a directory of the contact people who ran the CON programs or were available for consultation or representation on a project. Those of us who did quite a lot of this work treated such information as highly proprietary and only shared it with our clients. Mr. Cimasi’s book The U.S. Healthcare Certificate of Need Sourcebook fills that void in the literature and provides a useful research tool for both the neophyte and seasoned professional.

Healthcare providers, both institutional and non-institutional, whether for-profit or not-for-profit, will find this work to be a vital part of their libraries. Having had the pleasure to work with Bob Cimasi on many occasions, I know first-hand the depth of his knowledge and experience with complex subjects. I am delighted that he has taken the time to share some of his wisdom through this excellent book.