Session Laws

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:

SECTION 1. Chapter 111 of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting after section 57C the following section:-

Section 57D. The department shall, after a public hearing, promulgate rules and regulations for the licensing and conduct of hospice programs. For the purpose of this section, hospice shall mean a coordinated program of care and services for those who are determined to be terminally ill with a limited life expectancy. These services are to be provided by, or arranged to be provided through, an interdisciplinary team, which shall include health care and counseling providers, in a home setting, on an out-patient basis, and on a back-up in-patient basis, not to exclude those patients requiring only in-patient care. Such services shall include, but not be limited to, physician's services, nursing care provided by or under the supervision of a registered professional nurse, social services, volunteer services, and counseling services provided by professional or volunteer staff under professional supervision. The licensee, if contracting for in-patient back-up services, must have a written contract providing for such services. The department shall issue for a term of two years and renew for a like term a license to maintain a hospice program to any organization which it deems responsible and suitable to establish and maintain such program. Said licensees shall be subject to suspension, revocation, or refusal to renew for cause. The department shall determine the fee and renewal of said license.

SECTION 2. The first paragraph of section 6 of chapter 118E of the General Laws, as most recently amended by section 2 of chapter 698 of the acts of 1983, is hereby further amended by adding the following sentence:- The department shall provide financial assistance for the services of a hospice program; provided, however, that such program is licensed in accordance with section fifty-seven D of chapter one hundred and eleven.