LANSING – Under federal objections, certificate of need rules that required a proton beam therapy facility in the state to operate under a cooperative of hospitals were struck down. But the idea of a cooperative came back in the initial approval of a facility for Beaumont Hospitals.
The Certificate of Need office granted initial approval to the plan Friday and, while Community Health Director Janet Olszewski has 60 days to grant final approval, that action is expected to come much quicker.
Among the reasons for that quick turnaround is one of the stipulations on the agreement: the facility would have to be ready to serve its first patient in December 2010.
But the department is also requiring that Beaumont develop policies that would allow patients from anywhere in the state, even if they cannot afford to pay, to use the facility. And Beaumont would, on their request, have to give limited staff privileges to any doctors in the state who wanted to operate at the facility.
The approval would also require Beaumont to develop policies to allow other cancer hospitals to participate in the operation of the facility, including purchasing equity in the facility and setting physician and patient care standards.
“In a sense it does take the same spirit as the language that had the collaboration in it,” said Larry Horvath, manager of the Certificate of Need Program.
Horvath said the department had not yet heard back from Beaumont officials, but expected they would agree to the stipulations.
Six other cancer hospitals, Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Barbara Ann Karmanos Center Institute in Detroit, the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, McLaren Health Care in Flint, St. Joseph Mercy in Ann Arbor, and Genesys Hurley Cancer Institute in Flint, had already signed an agreement under the old Certificate of Need rules requiring a collaborative to run the facility. It was unclear whether they would go forward with a second facility or try to join the Beaumont proposal.
The CON Commission had implemented the rules requiring a collaborative in an attempt to reduce the effects the facility, projected to cost $150 million, would have on the state’s health care costs, particularly given the small range of cancers where the treatment has shown promise.
Federal officials had objected to the rules, concerned that they violated anti-trust laws.
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