South Carolina Code of Laws
Chapter 6 - Department Of Health And Human Services
Section 44-6-5. Definitions.

As used in this chapter:
(1) "Department" means the State Department of Health and Human Services.
(2) "Office" means the Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office.
(3) "Costs of medical education" means the direct and indirect teaching costs as defined under Medicare.
(4) "Market basket index" means the index used by the federal government on January 1, 1986, to measure the inflation in hospital input prices for Medicare reimbursement. If that measure ceases to be calculated in the same manner, the market basket index must be developed and regulations must be promulgated by the commission using substantially the same methodology as the federal market basket uses on January 1, 1986. Prior to submitting the regulations concerning the index to the General Assembly for approval pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, the department shall submit them to the Health Care Planning and Oversight Committee for review.
(5) "Medically indigent" means:
(a) all persons whose gross family income and size falls at or below the federal Community Service Administration guidelines and who meet certain qualifying criteria regarding real property allowance, qualifying services, residency requirements, and other sponsorship, and migrant or seasonal farm workers who have no established domicile in any state; and
(b) all persons whose gross family income and size falls between one hundred percent and two hundred percent of the Community Service Administration guidelines who meet certain other qualifying criteria regarding real property allowance, qualifying services, residency requirements, and other sponsorship and whose medical bill is sufficiently large in relation to their income and resources to preclude full payment. For the purposes of this definition, the qualifying criteria for real property allowance shall permit ownership of up to fifty acres of farmland upon which the family has resided for at least twenty-five years.
(6) "Net inpatient charges" means the total gross inpatient charges, minus the unreimbursed cost of medical education and the unreimbursed cost of providing medical care to medically indigent persons. The cost of care provided by a hospital to meet its Hill-Burton obligation is not considered an unreimbursed cost of providing medical care to medically indigent persons.
(7) "South Carolina growth index" means the percentage points added to the market basket index to adjust for the South Carolina specific experience. The Health Care Planning and Oversight Committee shall complete a study which identifies and quantifies those elements which should be included in the growth index. The elements may include, but are not limited to: population increases, aging of the population, changes in the type and intensity of hospital services, technological advances, the cost of hospital care in South Carolina relative to the rest of the nation, and needed improvements in the health status of state residents. Based on the study, the department shall develop and promulgate regulations for the annual computation of the growth index. Prior to submitting the regulations concerning the index to the General Assembly for approval pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act, the department shall submit them to the Health Care Planning and Oversight Committee for review. Until a formula for computing the South Carolina growth index is promulgated, the annual index must be six and six-tenths percent which is equal to the average percentage difference between South Carolina hospital expenditures and the federal market basket index for the previous ten years.
(8) "State resident" means a person who is domiciled in South Carolina. A domicile once established is lost or changes only when one moves to a new locality with the intention of abandoning his old domicile and intends to live permanently or indefinitely in the new locale.
(9) "Target rate of increase" means the federal market basket index as modified by the South Carolina growth index.
(10) "General hospital" means any hospital licensed as a general hospital by the Department of Health and Environmental Control.
HISTORY: 1985 Act No. 201, Part II, Section 19B; 1993 Act No. 181, Section 1038; 2018 Act No. 246 (H.3895), Section 8.C, eff July 1, 2018.
Effect of Amendment
2018 Act No. 246, Section 8.C, in (2), deleted "Office of Research and Statistics of the" preceding "Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Office".

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