Hospitals

"Hospital" means any institution, place, building, buildings on a campus, or agency, public or private, whether organized for profit or not, devoted primarily to the maintenance and operation of facilities for the diagnosis and treatment or care of 2 or more unrelated persons admitted for overnight stay or longer in order to obtain medical, including obstetric, psychiatric and nursing, care of illness, disease, injury, infirmity, or deformity.

The purpose of Hospital Licensing Act is to provide for the better protection of the public health through the development, establishment, and enforcement of standards (1) for the care of individuals in hospitals, (2) for the construction, maintenance, and operation of hospitals which, in light of advancing knowledge, will promote safe and adequate treatment of such individuals in hospital, and (3) that will have regard to the necessity of determining that a person establishing a hospital have the qualifications, background, character and financial resources to adequately provide a proper standard of hospital service for the community.

Critical Access Hospital - a hospital that is certified under Medicare that has no more than 25 inpatient beds; maintaining an annual average length of stay of no more than 96 hours for acute inpatient care; offering 24-hour, 7-day-a-week emergency care; and being located in a rural area, at least 35 miles drive away from any other hospital or CAH (fewer in some circumstances).

Long Term Acute Care Hospital - hospital that is certified as an acute‑care hospital, but it focuses on patients who, on average, stay more than 25 days. Many of the patients in LTCHs are transferred there from an intensive or critical care unit. LTCHs specialize in treating patients who may have more than one serious condition, but who may improve with time and care, and return home. LTCHs typically give services like comprehensive rehabilitation, respiratory therapy, head trauma treatment, and pain management.

Pediatric Hospital - hospital that offers its services exclusively to children and adolescents.

Psychiatric Hospital - Is primarily engaged in providing, by or under the supervision of a Doctor of Medicine or Osteopathy, psychiatric services for the diagnosis and treatment of mentally ill persons.

Rehabilitation Hospital - hospital devoted to the rehabilitation of patients with various neurological, musculoskeletal, orthopedic and other medical conditions following stabilization of their acute medical issues.

Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) - an entity that operates for the purpose of providing emergency department services, observation care, and other outpatient medical and health services in which the annual per patient average length of stay does not exceed 24 hours. The entity must not provide inpatient services, except those furnished in a unit that is a distinct part licensed as a skilled nursing facility to furnish post-REH or post-hospital extended care services pursuant to 42 CFR 485.502.

Transplant Programs - per the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, “a transplant program is defined as a component within a transplant hospital that provides transplantation of a particular type of organ to include; heart, lung, liver, kidney, pancreas, or intestine” for both adults and pediatrics. See Transplant Programs for more information.

The Health Care Credentials and Data Collection Act requires uniform forms to be utilized in order to collect the credentials data commonly requested by health care entities and health care plans for purposes of credentialing and recredentialing. The forms required for use by the Health Care Professional Credentialing and Data Collection Act (410 ILCS 517) are located under the Forms section on the right-hand side of this page.

"These forms are for use with the entity or entities that are conducting the credentialing. DO NOT SEND COMPLETED FORMS TO THE STATE. Please contact the health care plan, health care entity or hospital that is reviewing your credentials for instructions on where to send this form and any other information it may require in order to complete the credentialing process."

Refer to Section 250.120 Application for and Issuance of a License to Operate a Hospital.

• A change of ownership of a hospital occurs when one of the following transactions is completed:
  1. When ownership and responsibility for the operation of the assets constituting the licensed entity are transferred from the licensee to another person or another legal entity (including a corporation, limited liability company, partnership or sole proprietor) as part of an asset purchase or similar transaction;
  2. A material change in a partnership that is caused by the removal, addition, or substitution of a partner;
  3. In a corporation, when the licensee corporation merges into another corporation, or with the consolidation of two or more corporations, one of which is the licensee, resulting in the creation of a new corporation;
  4. The leasing of all the hospital's operations to another corporation or partnership.
• Prior to completing the transactions described in subsection (g)(1) or (g)(2), the new person, legal entity or partnership shall apply for a new license in compliance with Section (6)(b) of the Act.  The transaction shall not be complete until the Director issues a new license to the new person, legal entity or partnership.
• The transactions described in subsection (g) do not constitute a change in ownership when all of the entities that are parties to the transaction are under common control or ownership before and after the transaction is completed.  In these transactions, the name of the corporation, its officers, its independent subsidiaries and any other relevant information that the Department may require shall be made available to the Department upon request.
• Pursuant to subsection (g), the transfer of corporate stock or the merger of another corporation into the licensee corporation does not constitute a change of ownership if the licensee corporation remains in existence.

The hospital must contact the Health Facilities Services Review Board. See related Links.

When the agency is seeking to relocate the health care provider’s facility location, the provider shall contact the Health Facilities Service Review Board. See link.  In addition, if the Facility is Medicare certified the provider shall complete the Medicare Provider enrollment form A or B and submit to their Medicare fiscal intermediary.

Under Public Act 101-0445, effective January 1, 2020, the Medical Patient Rights Act was amended by requiring information about rights with regard to pregnancy and childbirth to be posted on this website. 

In general, with regard to pregnancy and childbirth, every woman has the right to:

• receive health care before, during, and after pregnancy and childbirth
• receive care for her and her infant that is consistent with generally accepted medical standards
• choose a certified nurse midwife or physician as her maternity care professional
• choose her birth setting from the full range of birthing options available in her community
• leave her maternity care professional and select another if she becomes dissatisfied with her care
• receive information about the names of those health care professionals involved in her care
• privacy and confidentiality of records
• receive information concerning her condition and proposed treatment
• accept or refuse any treatment
• be informed if her caregivers wish to enroll her or her infant in a research study
• access her medical records
• receive information in a language in which she can communicate
• receive emotional and physical support during labor and birth
• freedom of movement during labor and to give birth in the position of her choice
• contact with her newborn
• receive information about breastfeeding
• decide collaboratively with caregivers when she and her baby will leave the birth site for home
• be treated with respect at all times before, during, and after pregnancy by her health care professionals
• examine and receive a reasonable explanation of her total bill for services

The exact language for the rights of women with regard to pregnancy and childbirth can be found under Medical Patient Rights of Women under Laws & Rules.

• IL Compiled Statutes
• Emergency Contraception
• Emergency Contraception (español)
• Health Facilities & Services Review Board
• Hospital Directory
• Hospital Report Card
• Life Safety & Construction
• Profiles
• Advance Directives
• Medicare Chapter 2- Certification Process

• Medicare Intermediary Information
• Hospital Initial Licensure
• Checklist for New Hire/Rehire Background Check
• Health Care Professional Update Data Gathering Form
• Health Care Professional Credentialing and Data Gathering Form
• Health Care Professional Recredentialing and Data Gathering Form
• Rural Emergency Hospital License Application
• Hospital Treatment Plan 2019
• Out of State Hospital Treatment 2019
• Pediatric Facility Plan 2019
• Transfer Hospital Plan 2019
• Treatment Facility with Transfer Peds 2020

• Emergency Medical Treatment Act (210 ILCS 70)
• Health Care Professional Credentials Data Collection Code
• Hospital Emergency Service Act (210 ILCS 80)
• Hospital Licensing Act (210 ILCS 85)
• Hospital Report Card Act
• IDPH Administrative Code
• Language Assistance Services Act (210 ILCS 87)
• Medicare Hospital Manual
• Medicare Critical Access Hospital Guide
• SASETA Administrative Code
• Medical Patient Rights of Women