Section 449.8 - Health care for the medically indigent(a) Declaration of policy.--The General Assembly finds that every person in this Commonwealth should receive timely and appropriate health care services from any provider operating in this Commonwealth; that, as a continuing condition of licensure, each provider should offer and provide medically necessary, lifesaving and emergency health care services to every person in this Commonwealth, regardless of financial status or ability to pay; and that health care facilities may transfer patients only in instances where the facility lacks the staff or facilities to properly render definitive treatment.(b) Studies on indigent care.--To reduce the undue burden on the several providers that disproportionately treat medically indigent people on an uncompensated basis, to contain the long-term costs generated by untreated or delayed treatment of illness and disease and to determine the most appropriate means of treating and financing the treatment of medically indigent persons, the council, at the request of the Governor or the General Assembly, may undertake studies and utilize its current data base to: (1) Study and analyze the medically indigent population, the magnitude of uncompensated care for the medically indigent, the degree of access to and the result of any lack of access by the medically indigent to appropriate care, the types of providers and the settings in which they provide indigent care and the cost of the provision of that care pursuant to subsection (c).(2) Determine, from studies undertaken under paragraph (1), a definition of the medically indigent population and the most appropriate method for the delivery of timely and appropriate health care services to the medically indigent.(c) Studies. --The council shall conduct studies pursuant to subsection (b)(1) and thereafter report to the Governor and the General Assembly the results of the studies and its recommendations. The council may contract with an independent vendor to conduct the study in accordance with the provisions for selecting vendors in section 16. The study shall include, but not be limited to, the following:(1) the number and characteristics of the medically indigent population, including such factors as income, employment status, health status, patterns of health care utilization, type of health care needed and utilized, eligibility for health care insurance, distribution of this population on a geographic basis and by age, sex and racial or linguistic characteristics, and the changes in these characteristics, including the following:(i) the needs and problems of indigent persons in urban areas;(ii) the needs and problems of indigent persons in rural areas;(iii) the needs and problems of indigent persons who are members of racial or linguistic minorities;(iv) the needs and problems of indigent persons in areas of high unemployment; and(v) the needs and problems of the underinsured;(2) the degree of and any change in access of this population to sources of health care, including hospitals, physicians and other providers;(3) the distribution and means of financing indigent care between and among providers, insurers, government, purchasers and consumers, and the effect of that distribution on each;(4) the major types of care rendered to the indigent, the setting in which each type of care is rendered and the need for additional care of each type by the indigent;(5) the likely impact of changes in the health delivery system, including managed care entities, and the effects of cost containment in the Commonwealth on the access to, availability of and financing of needed care for the indigent, including the impact on providers which provide a disproportionate amount of care to the indigent;(6) the distribution of delivered care and actual cost to render such care by provider, region and subregion;(7) the provision of care to the indigent through improvements in the primary health care system, including the management of needed hospital care by primary care providers;(8) innovative means to finance and deliver care to the medically indigent; and(9) reduction in the dependence of indigent persons on hospital services through improvements in preventive health measures.1986, July 8, P.L. 408, No. 89, §8, imd. effective. Reenacted and amended 1993, June 28, P.L. 146, No. 34, §1, imd. effective. Reenacted 2003 , July 17, P.L. 31, No. 14, § 3, imd. effective; 2009, June 10, P.L. 10, No. 3, §3, retroactive effective 6/29/2008.