How to find West Virginia Certificate of Need filings
Where the Health Care Authority's Certificate of Need records are published, what each document contains, and how to get the ones that are not online.
Where does West Virginia publish CON filings?
The Health Care Authority's certificate of need pages explain the program and link the annual case-file reports, posted for 2017 to 2022 only. The case files themselves and the weekly newsletter are in the DHHR public reading room, under the categories Certificate of Need and News Letters. Letters of intent run as newspaper legal notices, many reposted on wvlegals.com.
What does each document tell you?
The annual report lists every file of the year with its type, dates, hearing request, project, capital expenditure and ruling. The weekly newsletter lists letters of intent received, reviewability rulings, exemptions and CON approvals with file numbers, dates and capital expenditure. The HCA decision gives the ruling, conclusions of law and conditions. The legal notice of a letter of intent gives the file number, applicant, project, counties and capital expenditure.
Why is it hard to follow a request from start to finish?
Most West Virginia filings are exemptions and reviewability rulings, not full CON reviews, and all of them share one file number series. The annual reports stop at 2022, and the HCA's old online document archive is gone. The reading room is a script-driven application, and many of its files are scans whose text layer misreads digits. Appeals before 2022 went through the HCA Office of Judges and Kanawha County Circuit Court, and there is no complete list of them.
How do I get records that are not online?
Search the reading room first: it holds case files and every weekly newsletter from 2016 on. For anything not there, the HCA's CON pages link a FOIA request portal. Name the file numbers and documents you want.
Is there other public data that helps?
Appeals of HCA rulings that reached the Intermediate Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Appeals are on courtswv.gov, often with the HCA decision in the record. The HCA posts its 2026 review cycle with batch dates and deadlines, though it names no filers. The capital threshold on the HCA site is $5,803,788.
Where does COPN Atlas fit?
COPN Atlas puts every HCA file from January 2016 to October 2026 in one row per file number: 2,922 rows, of which 528 are CON applications, 1,636 exemption applications and 730 determinations of reviewability, plus 28 whose type is not stated. 2,646 rows link the HCA decision document in the reading room. The file adds 456 letters of intent, and the Pipeline tab lists 18 announced since May 13, 2026. See what is in the West Virginia file.
Reserve one of the five founding subscriptions
One subscription covers every state in the file. Nothing is due until the first file arrives in January 2027, and you can cancel before then at no cost.