37.106.1132    MEDICAL ASSISTANCE FACILITIES: THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

(1) The medical assistance facility must enter into agreements with one or more providers participating in medicare or medicaid to provide services meeting the needs of its patients which the facility itself is unable to meet. Examples of such providers include:

(a) a provider of inpatient hospital care;

(b) a provider of specialized diagnostic imaging or laboratory services that are not available at the facility;

(c) a skilled nursing facility;

(d) a home health agency.

(2) If any of the agreements referred to in (1) are not in writing, there must be evidence that patients referred to another provider by the facility are being accepted and treated.

(3) If the facility is unable to ensure that a practitioner is physically available to the facility within one hour after s/he is contacted, the facility must enter into a written agreement with a licensed ambulance service committing the service to be available to commence transport of a patient, within one hour after that patient first contacts the facility, to a facility providing the level of care needed by the patient.

History: Sec. 50-5-103, MCA; IMP, Sec. 50-5-101, 50-5-103 and 50-5-204, MCA; NEW, 1989 MAR p. 663, Eff. 4/28/89; TRANS, from DHES, 2002 MAR p. 185.