New EMTALA Regulations Require Specialty Hospitals to Accept Transfers
[Posted 10/05/06]

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently made some changes to the Emergency Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) regulations. The new regulations, which took effect October 1, clarify that all hospitals, even specialty hospitals without emergency departments, must accept patient transfers from other hospitals as required by EMTALA.

EMTALA was passed by Congress in 1986 in response to widespread concerns that hospitals were turning away or transferring patients who were in need of emergency medical care but unable to pay for those services. The law requires hospitals with emergency rooms to provide emergency medical services to anyone regardless of ability to pay. The law also requires hospitals to accept transfers from another hospital’s emergency department if it is within the capability of the facility. Previously, it was unclear whether specialty hospitals without emergency departments were required to accept patient transfers from other hospitals’ emergency rooms.

The new regulations also authorize nurse-midwives and other qualified personnel acting within their legally authorized scope of practice to certify false labor. Previously, the EMTALA regulations required a physician to certify that a woman was not in “true” labor.

Contact: CMA’s legal information line, 415/882-5144 or legalinfo@cmanet.org.