Senate Health & Welfare hears testimony on H.96 to raise Vermont CON thresholds

The Senate Health & Welfare Committee on Wednesday heard testimony on H.96, a House-passed bill that would revise Vermont's certificate-of-need (CON) program by raising cost thresholds, aligning hospital and nonhospital limits and adding several exclusions.

Laura Bellaboe, staff attorney for the Green Mountain Care Board, told the committee, "I am here today to discuss H.96, which reforms and revises the CON laws, primarily by increasing the cost thresholds and, by setting the same cost thresholds for all health care facilities, both hospitals and nonhospitals." She walked members through numeric changes in the bill and pointed to drafting questions the board would like clarified.

Why it matters: CON review determines when large capital projects, new services or major equipment purchases must undergo state review. Backers of H.96 say higher thresholds would reduce regulatory delays and lower costs for new freestanding care sites; critics warn it could remove an oversight check that has blocked low-quality or inappropriate entrants.

Key provisions discussed

- Threshold increases: The bill would raise the capital-cost jurisdictional threshold to $10 million for both hospitals and nonhospital facilities (up from about $1.9 million for nonhospitals and $3.8 million for hospitals under current board guidance). The single-equipment threshold rises to $5 million (from roughly $1.2 million) and the annual operating-expense threshold for a new service to $3 million (from roughly…