If a governmental entity closes, sells, or leases a public hospital, it must keep providing basic health care services, adopt the required eligibility standards, and provide the same services the hospital would have had to provide. Some dissolution and transfer situations shift or remove responsibility.
Sec. 61.064. TRANSFER OF A PUBLIC HOSPITAL. (a) A governmental entity that owns, operates, or leases a public hospital and that closes, sells, or leases the hospital: (1) has the obligation to provide basic health care services under this chapter; (2) shall adopt the eligibility standards that the hospital was or would have been required to adopt; and (3) shall provide the same services the hospital was or would have been required to provide under this chapter on the date of the closing, sale, or lease. (b) If the governmental entity owned, operated, or leased the public hospital before January 1, 1985, and sold or leased the hospital on or after that date but before September 1, 1986, the obligation retained is the obligation the hospital would have had on September 1, 1986. (c) Notwithstanding Subsections (a) and (b), if a hospital district that owns, operates, or leases a public hospital dissolves, the district has no responsibility under this chapter. If on or before dissolution the district sold or transferred its hospital to another governmental entity, that governmental entity assumes the district's responsibility to provide health care services in accordance with this subchapter. If the district did not sell or transfer the hospital to another governmental entity, the county shall provide health care services to the residents of the district's service area in accordance with Subchapter B. (d) This section does not apply to a governmental entity that sold or leased a public hospital to a hospital district or a hospital authority on or after January 1, 1985, but before September 1, 1986. If a governmental entity sold or leased a hospital as provided by this subsection, the hospital ceased being a public hospital for the purposes of this chapter on the date it was sold or leased, and neither the governmental entity nor the hospital district or hospital authority has any responsibility under this chapter. Acts 1989, 71st Leg., ch. 678, Sec. 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1989. Amended by Acts 1999, 76th Leg., ch. 1377, Sec. 1.23, eff. Sept. 1, 1999.