SENATE BUDGET AND APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE

STATEMENT TO

SENATE, No. 4656

with committee amendments

STATE OF NEW JERSEY

DATED:  JUNE 26, 2025

      The Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee reports favorably and with committee amendments Senate Bill No. 4656.

      As amended and reported, this bill establishes the “Healthcare Finance Enhancement Act.”

     Under current law, the Department of Health imposes an assessment on the gross receipts of ambulatory care facilities with gross receipts over $300,000.  This assessment is imposed at a rate of 2.95 percent on each facility that is subject to the assessment.  The assessments on ambulatory care facilities collected under this law are to be deposited in the Health Care Subsidy Fund established pursuant to section 8 of P.L.1992, c.160 (C.26:2H-18.58). 

     This bill amends current law to reduce this assessment rate from 2.95 percent to 2.5 percent in fiscal year 2026 and to extend the assessment to all ambulatory care facilities beginning in fiscal year 2027.  The bill also eliminates the exemption from the ambulatory care facility assessment for surgical practices beginning in fiscal year 2026.

     The bill increases the per adjusted admission charge imposed on hospitals by the Department of Health from $10 to $12.50 beginning on July 1, 2025, and extends the imposition of this charge to non-public psychiatric hospitals.

COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS:

      The committee amendments:

      (1)  provide that an ambulatory care facility that was exempt from the assessment prior to Fiscal Year 2026 is to report in Fiscal Year 2026 the facility’s gross receipts from its operating room services; and

      (2)  define “operating room services.”

FISCAL IMPACT:

      Fiscal information for this bill is currently unavailable.