Washington, DC – Yesterday, Councilmember Christina Henderson introduced the Certificate of Need Improvement Amendment Act of 2024. The bill would improve and expand health care services for District residents by removing unnecessary obstacles for health care facilities to operate in the District.  

The District requires new health establishments, and any existing health establishments making substantial capital improvements, to obtain a Certificate of Need (CON) from the State Health Planning and Development Agency (SHPDA) within DC Health.  

“DC is not unique in its use of CONs in the health care field; however, DC’s requirements are more extensive than 48 other states,” stated Councilmember Christina Henderson.“Due to the current inflexibility of CONs, the bureaucracy involved with obtaining a CON can delay a project 6 to 9 months and come with a slew of expenses, ultimately preventing health care services from reaching those most in need.”

“CONs are meant to equitably place health care services throughout the District by requiring hospitals and health care systems to demonstrate public need prior to opening or expanding services in a given area. This is a laudable goal, and we want to make sure government bureaucracy does not prevent the expansion of health services to neighborhoods with limited access to healthcare, such as Wards 7 and 8,” concluded Councilmember Henderson.

The bill proposes to improve the District’s CON process by:

1. Exempting virtual provider networks and telehealth platforms from needing to obtain a CON and instead requiring DC Health to create a registration process for them;
2. Exempting office-based primary care and specialist practices, which will align the District with other states and which will encourage more primary and specialist care service providers to locate in the District;
3. Requiring SHPDA to update capital expenditure thresholds that trigger a CON biennially to better reflect inflation and other economic indicators;
4. Excluding non-patient care projects such as installing new elevators, garage improvements, and HVAC upgrades from the CON process;
5. Allowing more flexible project timelines and no longer forcing facilities to restart the CON process if a project takes longer than expected;
6. Defining the term “group practice” to add clarity to the D.C. Code; and
7. Adjusting the threshold for the number of beds that must be added or removed to trigger a CON, to avoid small facilities going through a lengthy CON process for small changes to their operations.

This bill was co-introduced by Councilmembers Charles Allen, Anita Bonds, Janeese Lewis George and Zachary Parker.  

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