COPN Atlas

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Who uses COPN Atlas, and for what

One file of Virginia COPN requests since 2016. Here is what it does for each kind of team that works on certificate of public need matters.

Law firms and health regulatory counsel CON and health planning consultants Hospital strategy and planning teams Imaging, surgery, cardiology and post-acute operators Investors, lenders and healthcare real estate

Law firms and health regulatory counsel

The job
Advise a hospital, practice or developer client whether to file, oppose a competing request or contest a decision, and back the advice with Virginia precedent.
How it works today
Decisions are posted by certificate number and staff reports separately, so a precedent set means opening PDFs one at a time.

What the file gives you

  • Every decision since 2016 beside the DCOPN staff recommendation. Staff recommended denial on 76 decided requests; the Commissioner approved 54 of them.
  • The State Medical Facilities Plan sections staff found not met, with their reasons, for 131 recent staff reports, and the Commissioner's reason wherever the decision departs from staff.
  • The five closest decided precedents for each of 54 pending requests and letters of intent, same service line and planning district first.
  • A calendar of 132 filing deadlines, review cycles and expected decision dates, as a tab and as a calendar file.

For law firms

CON and health planning consultants

The job
Build an application that holds up in staff review: the existing inventory, the comparable projects and the cost benchmarks.
How it works today
Inventory and utilization tables sit inside old staff reports, and pulling comparable projects is a records search every time.

What the file gives you

  • Existing equipment and beds by planning district from 88 DCOPN staff reports: 912 facility rows, each with the data year and the report it came from.
  • 608 requests since 2016 to filter by service line, district and capital cost (296 with a stated cost). The median request took 145 days from application to decision.
  • The 110 need calculations DCOPN printed in 83 recent staff reports, by planning district and service, next to the State Medical Facilities Plan threshold each one tests.
  • Why staff recommended denial, section by section, so a new application can answer those findings before staff raise them.

For consultants

Hospital strategy and planning teams

The job
Know what competitors are planning in your service area before it reaches public notice, and brief leadership on it.
How it works today
Letters of intent, notices and decisions post on separate VDH pages, and spotting a competitor's filing means checking each one by hand.

What the file gives you

  • 27 letters of intent with no public notice yet, each matched to the health system behind it.
  • Scorecards for 34 health systems, plus independent applicants: requests, approval rate, capital requested, staff denials and what is pending.
  • A monthly list of what changed, filtered to the districts, services or competitors you choose.

For planning teams

Imaging, surgery, cardiology and post-acute operators

The job
Decide where to add a scanner, a cath lab, operating rooms or beds, and judge the odds and the timeline before spending on an application.
How it works today
Approval rates and review times by service and district have to be pieced together from individual decisions.

What the file gives you

  • Approval rate, staff overrides and time to decision by service line and planning district, across 283 CT, MRI and PET requests, 38 cardiac cath requests and every other service.
  • Who already operates units in the district and how busy they are, from the inventory tables in staff reports.
  • 27 requests pending now and 27 letters of intent, so you know who you would be competing with in the next batch.

For operators

Investors, lenders and healthcare real estate

The job
Diligence a provider, a deal or a site whose value depends on a certificate of public need.
How it works today
Confirming what a certificate covers, its conditions and whether it is still within its validity period usually takes a records request.

What the file gives you

  • Certificate number, scope and conditions for each approval; 368 carry a charity care condition.
  • Validity periods for 488 certificates, with completion, extension or surrender wherever a later VDH document reports it.
  • Capital cost from the public notice and the parent health system on every row.

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