Health Facilities -- Licensure & Regulation
Area Offices
Health Quality Assurance has eleven area offices that
serve as local liaisons to providers. The area offices offer facility quality
assurance services to Florida's 67 counties.
Certificate
of Need and Financial Analysis
The Certificate of Need (CON)
program is a regulatory process that requires certain health care providers
to obtain state approval before offering certain new or expanded services.
Field Operations
Field Operations directs facility inspections,
which evaluate factors such as:
- ASPEN Regulations
- Consumer Complaint Call Center
- Health Standards & Quality Unit
- Minimum Data Set
- OASIS
- Quality Indicator Survey (QIS) Manual, August 2007
- Joint Hospitals Provider Surveyor Training, August, 2007
Health
Care Clinic Unit
The licensure of health care clinics by the
Agency for Health Care Administration was authorized when Governor
Bush signed the Health Care Clinic Act in 2003. The Agency's health
care clinic licensure and exemption process replaces clinic registration
that began in late 2001 at the Department of Health (DOH).
- Home Health Aide
- HOJA DE HECHOS SOBRE AYUDANTES DE SALUD EN EL HOGAR (29 kb pdf)
- Home Health Agency- are licensed to send both skilled (RN's, Therapists, Social Workers) and unskilled (home health aides, certified nursing assistants, homemaker/companions) staff into a patient's home. They may also provide staffing to health care facilities on a temporary basis.
- Hospices - are not for profit agencies licensed to provide supportive care in the homes of terminally ill patients.
- Nurse Registry - are agencies licensed to secure temporary employment for nurses, home health aides, certified nursing assistants, homemakers, and companions) in a patient's home or in health care facilities or other locations.
- Homemaker Companion - are agencies who employ individuals to do housekeeping, cook, run errands, and provide companionship.
- Home Medical Equipment Provider - any person or entity that holds itself out to the public as providing HME and services or accepts physician orders for equipment that typically requires home medical services.
- Health Care Services Pool - are staffing agencies that provide temporary employment in health care facilities, residential facilities and agencies for licensed, certified or trained health care personnel.
- If you wish to apply for a license but cannot print the application, law, rules and background screening information click here.
Hospital & Outpatient
Unit
The Hospital and Outpatient Services Unit (HOSU)
is responsible for licensing, registering, and regulating hospitals,
outpatient and health care service facilities. The unit regulates 16
diverse facilities, providers, suppliers, and programs as follows:
- Abortion Clinics
- Ambulatory Surgical Centers
- Birth Centers
- Comprehensive Outpatient Rehab. Facilities
- Crisis Stabilization Units and Short Term Residential Treatment Facilities
- Diagnostic Imaging Services
- Hospitals
- Joint Hospitals Provider Surveyor Training, August, 2007
- Partial Hospitalization Program
- Portable X-ray
- Rehabilitation Agencies
- Residential Treatment Centers
- Resid ential Treatment Facilities
- Risk Manager
- Rural Health Clinics
- Utilization Review
Laboratory
Licensure Unit
The Laboratory Unit of the Agency for
Health Care Administration administers programs for the licensure of Clinical
Laboratories, Drug-free
Workplace Laboratories, Multiphasic
Health Testing Centers (MHTC), and Organ
and Tissue Procurement Agencies in the state of Florida.
Long
Term Care Services
Oversees the state licensure and Medicare
and Medicaid certification of nursing homes, intermediate care facilities
for the developmentally disabled, homes for special services, transitional
living facilities, and prescribed pediatric extended care centers.
- Assisted Living Unit
- Background Screening
- Long Term Care Unit
- Facility Data Analysis Unit
- On-Line Reporting
- Portal for Nursing Homes and Assisted Living Facilities to submit, via the Internet, mandated reports for adverse incidents, liability claims, staffing, and available beds.
Managed
Health Care
The Bureau of Managed Health Care plays
an important role in AHCA's mission to champion accessible, affordable,
quality health care for all Floridians through the oversight and monitoring
of a variety of programs. HMOs, or Health Maintenance Organizations,
provide prepaid health services and place emphasis on preventive health
care through effective quality and cost controls. The Bureau has regulatory
authority over both
Plans and Construction
The
Office of Plans and Construction is primarily responsible for ensuring
that hospitals, nursing homes, and ambulatory surgical centers and Intermediate
Care Facilities for the Developmentally Disabled (ICF/DD) are safe, functional,
and provide safety-to-life for the patients and residents.
