§ 412.96 Special treatment: Referral centers.

(a) Criteria for classification as a referral center: Basic rule. CMS classifies a hospital as a referral center only if the hospital is a Medicare participating acute care hospital and meets the applicable criteria of paragraph (b) or (c) of this section.

(b) Criteria for cost reporting periods beginning on or after October 1, 1983. The hospital meets either of the following criteria:

(1) The hospital is located in a rural area (as defined in subpart D of this part) and has the following number of beds, as determined under the provisions of § 412.105(b) available for use:

(i) Effective for discharges occurring before April 1, 1988, the hospital has 500 or more beds.

(ii) Effective for discharges occurring on or after April 1, 1988, the hospital has 275 or more beds during its most recently completed cost reporting period unless the hospital submits written documentation with its application that its bed count has changed since the close of its most recently completed cost reporting period for one or more of the following reasons:

(A) Merger of two or more hospitals.

(B) Reopening of acute care beds previously closed for renovation.

(C) Transfer to the prospective payment system of acute care beds previously classified as part of an excluded unit.

(D) Expansion of acute care beds available for use and permanently maintained for lodging inpatients, excluding beds in corridors and other temporary beds.

(2) The hospital shows that—(i) At least 50 percent of its Medicare patients are referred from other hospitals or from physicians not on the staff of the hospital; and

(ii) At least 60 percent of the hospital's Medicare patients live more than 25 miles from the hospital, and at least 60 percent of all the services that the hospital furnishes to Medicare beneficiaries are furnished to beneficiaries who live more than 25 miles from the hospital.

(c) Alternative criteria. For cost reporting periods beginning on or after October 1, 1985, a hospital that does not meet the criteria of paragraph (b) of this section is classified as a referral center if it is located in a rural area (as defined in subpart D of this part) and meets the criteria specified in paragraphs (c)(1) and (c)(2) of this section and at least one of the three criteria specified in paragraphs (c)(3), (c)(4), and (c)(5) of this section.

(1) Case-mix index. CMS sets forth national and regional case-mix index values in each year's annual notice of prospective payment rates published under § 412.8(b). The methodology CMS uses to calculate these criteria is described in paragraph (h) of this section. The case-mix index value to be used for an individual hospital in the determination of whether it meets the case-mix index criteria is that calculated by CMS from the hospital's own billing records for Medicare discharges as processed by the fiscal intermediary and submitted to CMS. The hospital's case-mix index for discharges (not including discharges from units excluded from the prospective payment system under subpart B of this part) during the same Federal fiscal year used to compute the case mix index values under paragraph (h) of this section must be at least equal to—