A. The department shall not decrease the amount of any assistance payments made to the hospitals or health care providers of this state pursuant to law because of any financial reimbursement made to ambulance services, hospitals or health care providers for indigent or medicaid eligible patients as provided in the Indigent Hospital and County Health Care Act.

B. The department shall cooperate with each county in furnishing information or assisting in the investigation of any person to determine whether the person meets the qualifications of an indigent patient as defined in the Indigent Hospital and County Health Care Act.

C. The department shall provide an annual report to each county and each qualifying hospital on the previous calendar year's payments from the safety net care pool for uncompensated care to qualifying hospitals and estimated payments of enhanced medicaid base rates. The annual report for the previous year shall be provided by July 1 of the succeeding year.

History: 1953 Comp., § 13-2-27, enacted by Laws 1965, ch. 234, § 16; 1987, ch. 88, § 5; 1993, ch. 321, § 13; 2013, ch. 151, § 1; 2014, ch. 79, § 15.

The 2014 amendment, effective March 12, 2014, required the department to give an annual report to each county and qualifying hospital on the previous year's payments from the safety net care pool fund; in the catchline, after "cooperation", added "reporting"; in Subsection B, after "cooperate with each", deleted "board" and added "county"; and in Subsection C, deleted all of the former language which required the department to ensure that payments did not exceed amounts that would be paid under medicare payment principles and if payments exceeded medicare payment principles, to reduce the sole community provider payment prior to any reduction in payments to hospitals under the state medicaid program, and added the current language of the subsection.

Compiler's notes. — The governor partially vetoed Laws 2014, ch. 79, § 15. In the first sentence of Subsection C, the governor vetoed the word "fund" after "safety net care pool".

To view the chaptered bill in its entirety, see the 2014 session laws on NMOneSource.com.

The 2013 amendment, effective June 14, 2013, provided additional sources of assistance payments; in Subsection C, in the second sentence, at the end of the sentence, after "state medicaid program" added the remainder of the sentence.

The 1993 amendment, effective July 1, 1993, deleted "human services" before "department" near the beginning and substituted "and County Health Care" for "Claims" near the end in Subsections A and B; inserted "or health care providers" before "of this state" and substituted "ambulance services, hospitals or health care providers for indigent or medicaid eligible patients" for "hospitals for indigent or welfare patients" in Subsection A; and added Subsection C.