(a) There is created within the Department of Health a State Hospice Office to be administered in a division of the department to be designated by the Director of the Department of Health.

(b) (1) The office shall:

(A) Coordinate the care of terminally ill persons with all existing agencies, programs, and facilities;

(B) Implement rules, regulations, and standards for hospice care in general agreement with guidelines of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization and the Hospice and Palliative Care Association of Arkansas and in compliance with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services;

(C) Provide technical assistance and information to developing hospices;

(D) Maintain a central storehouse of information and reference materials relating to the hospice concept and disseminate this to programs and individuals on request in an equitable manner and accept and respond to inquiries relating to hospice; and

(E) Assist the Arkansas State Hospice Association in developing the hospice concept in this state and networking hospice programs with existing medical communities and human service facilities.

(2) All functions and duties of the office shall be carried out in accordance with the laws of Arkansas and the regulations of the Health Services Permit Agency, the Health Services Permit Commission, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

(c)

(1) The regulations and requirements of the Health Services Permit Agency and the Health Services Permit Commission shall be revised to include separate permit-of-approval categories of healthcare facilities entitled "hospice facilities" and "hospice agencies" and to develop criteria for granting the permits of approval for hospice facilities and for hospice agencies for which applications shall be filed in accordance with the criteria.

(2) A hospice facility or hospice agency shall not convert its licensure to any other license.

(d) As used in this section, "hospice" or "hospice program" means an autonomous, centrally administered, medically directed, coordinated program providing a continuum of home, outpatient, and homelike inpatient care for the terminally ill patient and the patient's family, and which employs an interdisciplinary team to assist in providing palliative and supportive care to meet the special needs arising out of the physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and economic stresses which are experienced during the final stages of illness and during dying and bereavement. The care shall be available twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week, and provided on the basis of need, regardless of ability to pay.

(e) The licensure fee for a hospice shall be an annual fee of five hundred dollars ($500).