1. The Bureau for Hospital Patients is hereby created within the Office for Consumer Health Assistance.

2. The Advocate:

(a) Is responsible for the operation of the Bureau, which must be easily accessible to the clientele of the Bureau.

(b) Shall appoint and supervise such additional employees as are necessary to carry out the duties of the Bureau. The employees of the Bureau are in the unclassified service of the State.

3. The Advocate or the Advocate’s designee may, upon request made by either party, hear, mediate, arbitrate or resolve by alternative means of dispute resolution disputes between patients and hospitals. The Advocate or the Advocate’s designee may decline to hear a case that in the Advocate’s opinion is trivial, without merit or beyond the scope of his or her jurisdiction. The Advocate or the Advocate’s designee may hear, mediate, arbitrate or resolve through alternative means of dispute resolution disputes regarding:

(a) The accuracy or amount of charges billed to a patient;

(b) The reasonableness of arrangements made for a patient to pay any bill for medical services, including, without limitation, arrangements to pay hospital bills made pursuant to paragraph (c) of subsection 1 of NRS 439B.260; and

(c) Such other matters related to the charges for care provided to a patient as the Advocate or the Advocate’s designee determines appropriate for arbitration, mediation or other alternative means of dispute resolution.

The Advocate’s designee must be an employee of the State and, except for the purposes of this subsection, must not be employed by, or otherwise associated with, the Bureau or the Office for Consumer Health Assistance.

4. The decision of the Advocate or the Advocate’s designee is a final decision for the purpose of judicial review.

5. Each hospital, other than federal and state hospitals, with 49 or more licensed or approved hospital beds shall pay an annual assessment for the support of the Bureau. On or before July 15 of each year, the Advocate shall notify each hospital of its assessment for the fiscal year. Payment of the assessment is due on or before September 15. Late payments bear interest at the rate of 1 percent per month or fraction thereof.

6. The total amount assessed pursuant to subsection 5 for a fiscal year must not be more than $100,000 adjusted by the percentage change between January 1, 1991, and January 1 of the year in which the fees are assessed, in the Consumer Price Index (All Items) published by the United States Department of Labor.

7. The total amount assessed must be divided by the total number of patient days of care provided in the previous calendar year by the hospitals subject to the assessment. For each hospital, the assessment must be the result of this calculation multiplied by its number of patient days of care for the preceding calendar year.

(Added to NRS by 2001, 2652; A 2003, 351; 2005, 1022; 2011, 589, 975; 2013, 1615) — (Substituted in revision for NRS 223.575)