Health Care Committee weighs H.96 as Rutland Regional warns CON rules delay equipment replacement and birthing‑unit upgrade

The House Health Care Committee heard testimony on H.96, a bill that would raise Vermont's certificate of need (CON) monetary thresholds, with hospital officials and policy advocates saying current limits delay necessary equipment replacement and construction projects.

Jonathan Reynolds, vice president for clinical operations at Rutland Regional Medical Center, told the committee the current CON thresholds — $1,800,000 for replacement equipment and $3,600,000 for construction — are “pretty low and easy to trigger” and that inflation and modern regulatory requirements have made routine replacements more costly. "The CON application significantly delays the start of the construction," Reynolds said, adding the process can delay projects "by at least a year, if not longer."

Reynolds testified that Rutland Regional submitted two recent CON applications: a $3,100,000 MRI replacement and a $4,000,000 linear‑accelerator replacement for radiation treatments. He said the MRI unit performs about 6,000 scans a year and the linear accelerator delivers almost 6,000 radiation treatments annually. Reynolds said manufacturers told the hospital the older devices could no longer be supported and that cybersecurity risks and…