(a) Except as provided by Subsection (e), the commissioners court of a county that collects a mandatory payment authorized under this chapter may require an annual mandatory payment to be assessed on the net patient revenue of each institutional health care provider located in the county. The commissioners court may provide for the mandatory payment to be assessed quarterly. In the first year in which the mandatory payment is required, the mandatory payment is assessed on the net patient revenue of an institutional health care provider as determined by the data reported to the Department of State Health Services under Sections 311.032 and 311.033 in the fiscal year ending in 2017 or, if the institutional health care provider did not report any data under those sections in that fiscal year, as determined by the institutional health care provider's Medicare cost report submitted for the 2017 fiscal year or for the closest subsequent fiscal year for which the provider submitted the Medicare cost report. The county shall update the amount of the mandatory payment on an annual basis.
(b) The amount of a mandatory payment authorized under this chapter must be uniformly proportionate with the amount of net patient revenue generated by each paying hospital in the county. A mandatory payment authorized under this chapter may not hold harmless any institutional health care provider, as required under 42 U.S.C. Section 1396b(w).
(c) The commissioners court of a county that collects a mandatory payment authorized under this chapter shall set the amount of the mandatory payment. The amount of the mandatory payment required of each paying hospital may not exceed six percent of the hospital's net patient revenue.
(d) Subject to the maximum amount prescribed by Subsection (c), the commissioners court of a county that collects a mandatory payment authorized under this chapter shall set the mandatory payments in amounts that in the aggregate will generate sufficient revenue to cover the administrative expenses of the county for activities under this chapter, to fund an intergovernmental transfer described by Section 293C.103 (c)(1), and to pay for indigent programs, except that the amount of revenue from mandatory payments used for administrative expenses of the county for activities under this chapter in a year may not exceed the lesser of four percent of the total revenue generated from the mandatory payment or $20,000.
(e) A paying hospital may not add a mandatory payment required under this section as a surcharge to a patient.
Added by Acts 2019, 86th Leg., R.S., Ch. 304 (H.B. 1142 ), Sec. 1, eff. May 31, 2019.
