Application Procedures

Application Procedures. A Small Community Hospital seeking an exemption under the Pilot Program shall submit a written application to the Department on the Pilot Program application form prescribed by the Department. The Pilot Program application form is distinct from, and shall not be submitted on, the standard Determination of Reviewability form described in Rule 3.9 of this Manual. The application shall: 1. Identify the requesting hospital by name, address, and licensure number; 2. Identify the type of exemption sought and the statutory subsection under which the hospital claims eligibility, specifying whether eligibility is claimed under Rule 9.2(1)(a) or Rule 9.2(1)(b); 3. Provide documentation sufficient to establish eligibility as a small community hospital under the definition in Rule 9.2(1); 4. Describe the proposed activity for which the exemption is sought; 5. For ESRD Exemption requests only: identify the hospital's Public Health Region and provide information relevant to the determination of remoteness from existing dialysis units; and 6. Include any other information the Department requires for eligibility verification. Page 75 — Mississippi State Department of Health The Department may request additional information reasonably necessary to evaluate the application. The application deadline of June 30, 2027, established by Rule 9.4, is established by statute and may not be waived by the Department. Application Fee and Public Notice. An application filed under this rule shall be accompanied by a processing fee of One Thousand Five Hundred Dollars ($1,500.00), payable to the Department by check, draft, or money order, and is subject to the same public notice requirement applicable to Determination of Reviewability requests under Rule 3.9. Notification to affected persons shall be made within five (5) business days of receipt of a complete application by publishing notice on the Department's website. Department Tracking. The Department shall assign a tracking number to each application filed under this rule and shall maintain a record of each small community hospital's cumulative exemption usage against its statutory allotment under Rule 9.3, including any ESRD Exemption or Geriatric Psychiatric Unit Exemption issued. ESRD Exemption — Comparative Review Window. Because award of the ESRD Exemption depends on a comparison among all small community hospitals that have filed an application for that exemption within the same Public Health Region, the following procedure applies: 1. The comparative review window for each Public Health Region opens on July 1, 2026, and remains open for forty-five (45) calendar days from that date, during which the Department shall accept and hold for comparison all complete ESRD Exemption applications filed for that region. An ESRD Exemption application filed for a Public Health Region after the close of that region's comparative review window, where exemptions remain available for that region, shall be processed and decided individually as received in accordance with the time periods otherwise applicable under this rule. 2. The Department shall not issue a decision on any individual ESRD Exemption application for a given Public Health Region until the comparative review window for that region has closed. The forty-five (45) calendar day response period otherwise applicable to a Pilot Program application under this rule is tolled, as to ESRD Exemption applications only, until the comparative review window closes. 3. Upon closure of the comparative review window for a Public Health Region, the Department shall decide all ESRD Exemption applications pending for that region together, applying the remoteness priority standard in Rule 9.3(C). 4. A small community hospital whose ESRD Exemption application is not granted because the available exemptions for its Public Health Region have already been awarded to other applicants under the remoteness priority standard shall have the processing fee paid under this rule applied, without Page 76 — Mississippi State Department of Health additional charge, toward an application for the General Exemption under