Health Care Financing Administration--Medicare and Medicaid; provider agreements: redesignation and rewrite of Medicare regulations; effective dates; effect of change in ownership. Final rule with comment period.

These regulations revise and redesignate the policies pertaining to provider agreements under the Medicare program to simplify them and to make them easier to read. We have made substantive changes only in the provisions relating to the effective date of the agreement and the effect of a change in ownership. These substantive changes were issued as proposed rulemaking on February 5, 1979, and will also apply to the Medicaid program. The substantive changes make provider agreements effective on the date of the onsite health and safety survey if all Federal requirements are met. If all requirements are not met, the effective date is the date the requirements are met or the date the provider submits an acceptable plan of correction or waiver request. The revised regulations also provide that existing provider agreements be assigned to new owners, subject to the terms and conditions under which they were originally issued. The intent of the substantive changes is to achieve maximum uniformity of policy for the two programs and to provide continuity of coverage for beneficiaries and recipients when there is change of ownership.