Keystone has considerable experience providing Certificate of Need (CON) planning services to healthcare providers. Since 1997 our consultants have prepared and submitted hundreds of CON applications for regulatory review. The bottom line with any CON project is obtaining regulatory approval. Based on this measure, Keystone is a leader. Our measurable result is a high track record of success so your organization can proceed with development plans.

Keystone’s experts focus on offering our healthcare clients straightforward and effective solutions to their regulatory challenges. We have deep knowledge of and wide-ranging experience with CON law. It is not an exaggeration to say that our consultants have daily interaction with CON regulators and the regulatory process. The result is a tangible benefit to our clients. In developing your application, we call upon this broad knowledge, technical excellence, reality-based planning, and attention to detail. Combined with our unparalleled reputation for service, your team is sure to be satisfied in entrusting its CON project to Keystone.

Our keys to success with CON projects include a clear focus, an effective strategy, and a concise and realistic application. Throughout the engagement, Keystone’s principals will work closely with your team to shape a winning CON strategy. We communicate clearly throughout the project, insuring that your team is fully engaged. Via the project kickoff, a pre-application conference with regulators, and during application development, our CON team efficiently leads our clients toward a positive outcome. Each CON application is unique, and requires a customized strategy. This includes a focus on service area definition, community need, program staffing, proforma financial statements, and conformity with CON law and administrative rules. Our attention to detail, combined with the experience to understand the regulatory process, results in a final product that gets your organization to the future that you envision.

Our healthcare consultants have developed a client-friendly process for assisting healthcare providers to successfully navigate the regulatory process. Our engagement with you means everything to us. Your project is unique. Your development goal is the centerpiece of our CON Team’s engagement. Whether the project has a short or long lead-time, clients are assured of a comprehensive CON development process. Our approach has effectively served a wide variety of healthcare clients, including hospitals, physician groups, and long-term care providers.

Keystone’s CON team includes hospital administrators and healthcare professionals with experience in management, business planning, public health, and market development. We work with every type of healthcare provider, on all regulated healthcare services, including:

• Acute care & specialty hospitals
• Ambulatory surgery centers
• Medical diagnostic centers
• Long-term care facilities
• Psychiatric & rehabilitation facilities
• Hospice inpatient facilities
• Home health & hospice agencies
• Facility expansion & replacement
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Computed Tomography
• Radiation Therapy
• Positron Emission Tomography
• Cardiac Catheterization

Beyond CON applications, we provide alternative regulatory solutions such as material compliance, no review or exemption letters. Our professionals participate in the annual planning process of the State Medical Facilities Plan. We offer our clients regulatory research, general methodology and adjusted need determination petitions, public hearing presentations, and advocacy before the State Health Coordinating Council. We provide CON services in North Carolina and in other states.

KPG also provides clients with support for CON-related litigation, including defense of approved applications, advocacy of disapproved applications and opposition to competitor’s applications. Our consultants have been designated by administrative law judges as expert witnesses in health planning and CON preparation.