Proposed Nursing Home Certificate of Need Meeting June 19

A 109-bed assisted care facility called Traditions at Londonderry, proposed for the corner of Mammoth and Grenier Field roads, goes to its Certificate of Need hearing in Concord on Thursday, June 19.

According to Cindy Carrier of the Health Service Planning and Review Board, “the board will vote it up or down at the meeting on whether or not the application has been approved and they can go ahead to build that and operationalize it or not.”

Carrier said that the meeting is open and the public and other institutions can have input.

“Nobody as yet has asked whether or not to be an intervener for adding input to the meeting,” Carrier said Monday, the deadline to make such a request.

The meeting will be held at 9:30 a.m. at the New Hampshire Hospital Association, 125 Airport Road, Concord.

Carrier said that she couldn’t speak to the merits of the application specifically because the review process was ongoing.

“The criteria is set by regulation,” she explained. “The applicant submits their application and answers a series of questions, and we evaluate that based upon their responses and the material they submitted. There are a host of questions consisting of 100 pages or something. It’s very involved.”

According to the board’s website, the proposed project has a cost of about $14,370,000. The board regulates the Certificate of Need Program.

“The Certificate of Need Program is a state program that is the final authority on specific entity construction and renovation projects that are related to healthcare entities like nursing homes or hospitals and ambulatory surgery facilities,” Carrier said.

“If a hospital is looking to add a wing, there is a financial aspect to the statute, they need approval of the board, permission of the board to go ahead with that project. They don’t get to construct it and then get it licensed,” she said.

Carrier said the program had its roots in the federal government in the early ‘70s to prevent excessive spending and duplication of services.

“The state continued the program as sort of gate keepers for these types of projects,” Carrier said.