The Office of Attorney General (RIAG) and the Rhode Island Department of Health (HEALTH) announced today that the Hospital Conversion Initial Application for Prime Healthcare Services and Landmark Medical Center, and affiliated entities, has been deemed complete.
Pursuant to the Hospital Conversions Act, RIAG and HEALTH have 120 days, commencing July 1, 2013, to review and evaluate the application to determine if the transaction may go forward.
The review of the initial application was suspended on March 29, 2013 when the transacting parties failed to provide the required information within the statutory timeframe. Given the specific circumstances of Landmark, especially that is has been in Special Mastership for five years, by this suspension, RIAG and HEALTH permitted the application to continue to be processed even though the application remained incomplete rather than rejecting it without prejudice. This gave the transacting parties more time to achieve a complete application and avoided additional delay that would have been caused by requiring the entire application to be re-filed.
Staff from RIAG and HEALTH have continued to work with the transacting parties to ensure the inclusion of all the information needed to conduct the review of the application pursuant to the Hospital Conversions Act.
In a separate but related matter, HEALTH accepted as complete Prime's application for a change in effective control of Landmark Medical Center and the Rehabilitation Hospital of Rhode Island. Both of these applications will be heard before the Health Services Council. Those meetings of the Health Services Council have yet to be scheduled.