The National Health Planning and Resources Development Act, or Public Law 93-641 is a piece of 1974
AmericanCongressional legislation. Many
Certificate of Need programs trace their origin to the act which offered incentives for states to implement these programs.[1][2]
Details of the Act
In this Act, three distinct existing programs were consolidated:
Congress realized that the provision of
federal funds for the construction of new
health care facilities was contributing to increasing health care costs by generating duplication of facilities.
The intent of Congress in passing this Act was to create throughout the United States, a strengthened and improved federal-, state- and area-wide system of health planning and resources development that would help provide solutions to several identified problems.
The perceived problems the Act was intended to address were as follows:
lack of equal access to quality health care at reasonable cost
infusion of federal funds into the health care system was contributing to
inflationary health care costs while failing to produce an adequate supply or distribution of health resources
the lack of a comprehensive, rational approach by the
public and
private sectors to creation of uniformly effective methods of delivering health care
misdistribution of health care facilities and manpower
increasing and uncontrolled inflation of health care costs, particularly the costs associated with
hospital stays
inadequate incentives for the use of alternative levels of health care and the substitution of ambulatory and intermediate care for inpatient hospital care
the lack of basic knowledge regarding proper personal health care and methods for effective use of available health services in large segments of the population
This legislation was also intended to encourage health care providers to play an active role in developing health
policy.