The Florida Senate

¹395.7015  Annual assessment on health care entities.--

(1)  For purposes of this section, the term:

(a)  "Net operating revenue" means gross revenue less deductions from revenue.

(b)  "Gross revenue" means the sum of daily service charges, ambulatory service charges, ancillary service charges, and other operating revenue, except revenues received for testing or analysis of samples received from outside the state or from product sales outside the state.

(c)  "Deductions from revenue" means reductions from gross revenue resulting from inability to collect payment of charges. Such reductions include bad debts; contractual adjustments; uncompensated care; administrative, courtesy, and policy discounts and adjustments; and other such revenue deductions, and includes the offset of restricted donations and grants for indigent care.

²(2)  There is imposed an annual assessment against certain health care entities as described in this section:

(a)  The assessment shall be equal to 1.5 percent of the annual net operating revenues of health care entities. The assessment shall be payable to and collected by the agency. Assessments shall be based on annual net operating revenues for the entity's most recently completed fiscal year as provided in subsection (3).

(b)  For the purpose of this section, "health care entities" include the following:

1.  Ambulatory surgical centers and mobile surgical facilities licensed under s. 395.003. This subsection shall only apply to mobile surgical facilities operating under contracts entered into on or after July 1, 1998.

2.  Clinical laboratories licensed under s. 483.091, excluding any hospital laboratory defined under s. 483.041(5), any clinical laboratory operated by the state or a political subdivision of the state, any clinical laboratory which qualifies as an exempt organization under s. 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and which receives 70 percent or more of its gross revenues from services to charity patients or Medicaid patients, and any blood, plasma, or tissue bank procuring, storing, or distributing blood, plasma, or tissue either for future manufacture or research or distributed on a nonprofit basis, and further excluding any clinical laboratory which is wholly owned and operated by 6 or fewer physicians who are licensed pursuant to chapter 458 or chapter 459 and who practice in the same group practice, and at which no clinical laboratory work is performed for patients referred by any health care provider who is not a member of the same group.

3.  Diagnostic-imaging centers that are freestanding outpatient facilities that provide specialized services for the identification or determination of a disease through examination and also provide sophisticated radiological services, and in which services are rendered by a physician licensed by the Board of Medicine under s. 458.311, s. 458.313, or s. 458.317, or by an osteopathic physician licensed by the Board of Osteopathic Medicine under s. 459.006, s. 459.007, or s. 459.0075. For purposes of this paragraph, "sophisticated radiological services" means the following: magnetic resonance imaging; nuclear medicine; angiography; arteriography; computed tomography; positron emission tomography; digital vascular imaging; bronchography; lymphangiography; splenography; ultrasound, excluding ultrasound providers that are part of a private physician's office practice or when ultrasound is provided by two or more physicians licensed under chapter 458 or chapter 459 who are members of the same professional association and who practice in the same medical specialties; and such other sophisticated radiological services, excluding mammography, as adopted in rule by the board.

(3)(a)  Beginning July 1, 1993, the assessment shall be on the actual experience of the entity as reported to the agency within 120 days after the end of its fiscal year in the preceding calendar year based upon reports developed by the board in a rule after consultation with appropriate professional and governmental advisory bodies.

(b)  Within 6 months after the end of each entity's fiscal year, the agency shall certify the amount of the assessment to each entity. The assessment shall be payable to and collected by the agency in equal quarterly amounts on or before the first day of each calendar quarter, beginning with the first full calendar quarter.

(4)  All moneys collected pursuant to this section shall be deposited into the Public Medical Assistance Trust Fund.

(5)  The agency may use its authority under chapter 408 in administering this section.

History.--s. 177, ch. 91-112; s. 94, ch. 92-33; s. 33, ch. 92-58; s. 74, ch. 92-149; s. 52, ch. 92-289; s. 73, ch. 95-143; s. 2, ch. 98-192; s. 9, ch. 98-303.

¹Note.--Section 10, ch. 98-303, provides that "[m]obile surgical facilities in operation pursuant to a contract with the Department of Corrections entered into prior to [May 29, 1998] shall continue to operate pursuant to such contract and shall only be subject to the provisions of this act subsequent to the effective date of any rules promulgated by the Agency for Health Care Administration relating to mobile surgical facilities."

²Note.--Section 4, ch. 98-192, as amended by s. 3, ch. 99-356, provides that "[t]his act shall take effect July 1, 1998. However, if the Agency for Health Care Administration between April 15, 1999 and November 15, 1999 receives written certification from the federal Health Care Financing Administration that the amendments enacted herein to s. 395.701, F.S. or s. 395.7015, F.S., violate federal regulations regarding permissible state health care taxes which would cause the state to be denied federal Medicaid funds, then the amendment to the individual section contained herein and so identified by the Health Care Financing Administration as violating federal law hereby stands repealed. Upon receipt of written certification from the Health Care Financing Administration, the Agency for Health Care Administration shall forward such certification to the Secretary of State, the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives with a letter identifying the section or sections which stand repealed consistent with this section. The Secretary of State shall delete the amendment to the section so identified in the official records of the Florida Statutes consistent with this section. The effective date of the repeal of the section contained in the federal certification shall be the date that the notice is received by the Secretary of State."

Note.--Former s. 395.1015.