During its 1999 session, the Maryland General Assembly enacted House Bill (HB) 995, (Chapter 702, Acts of 1999, now Health-General Article §19-101, et.seq., Annotated Code of Maryland), which consolidated the duties and responsibilities of two existing health regulatory and policy-making bodies, the Health Care Access and Cost Commission and the Maryland Health Resources Planning Commission, into the Maryland Health Care Commission. Uncodified language in HB 995 required the new Commission to undertake a two-year analysis and evaluation of Maryland’s Certificate of Need program, and to present its findings to the legislature in two reports, at the beginning of the 2000 and 2001 sessions.
Phase I of this study, published in January 2001, examined the history and context of CON regulation for the following CON-regulated health care services: cardiac surgery, acute inpatient obstetric services, home health agency and hospice services, and comprehensive care facilities (nursing homes.) Phase II, published in January 2002, focused on the remaining health care services regulated in Maryland under the CON program: specialized hospital services (including NICU, organ transplant surgery, burn treatment, and comprehensive inpatient rehabilitation services), acute hospital services (medical-surgical and pediatrics), adult inpatient psychiatric services, inpatient psychiatric services and residential treatment centers for children and adolescents, ambulatory surgical services, and intermediate care facilities for substance abuse treatment and for the developmentally disabled.
An Analysis and Evaluation of Certificate
of Need Regulation in Maryland: Phase I Final Report
Report of the Certificate
of Need Task Force, November 22, 2005 
