Care Levels

By Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., and Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA

Every federal prison and every person in one carries a medical care level from 1 to 4 and a separate mental health care level from 1 to 4. The Bureau of Prisons matches the two: a person whose medical needs rate Care Level 3 cannot be designated to a Care Level 1 camp, because that camp does not have the staff or the community hospital relationships to manage them.

That single pairing decides more about a federal sentence than most families expect. It determines which prison your loved one is sent to, how far from home, whether a transfer request can be granted, how quickly a specialist appointment happens, and — if health deteriorates badly — whether the record will support a motion to the sentencing court.

Fact	Value	Source
Governing policy	BOP Program Statement 6031.06, Patient Care	PS 6031.06
Effective	22 June 2026	PS 6031.06 at p. 1
Rescinded	PS 6031.05 CN-2, Patient Care (14 March 2025)	PS 6031.06 at p. 1
Number of medical care levels	Four	PS 6031.06 at p. 12
Number of mental health care levels	Four (CARE1-MH to CARE4-MH)	PS 5310.16 at pp. 8–10
Who sets an institution’s care level	Health Services Division (HSD), Central Office	PS 6031.06 at p. 12
Who sets an individual’s medical care level	The institution Clinical Director or designee physician	PS 6031.06 at p. 13
When an individual’s level is reviewed	On arrival, at each chronic care clinic visit, and at every comprehensive medical evaluation	PS 6031.06 at p. 13
Care Level 4 institutions	The Bureau’s Medical Referral Centers (MRCs)	PS 6031.06 at p. 12
Statutory duty behind all of it	18 U.S.C. § 4042(a)(2) — “provide suitable quarters and provide for the safekeeping, care, and subsistence”	18 U.S.C. § 4042

Currency stamp: verified against PS 6031.06 (eff. 22 June 2026) and the superseded PS 6031.05 CN-2 on 7 September 2026.

A Program Statement is agency policy, not law. It is the Bureau’s own instruction to its staff. The binding legal authority is the statute (18 U.S.C. §§ 3621, 4042) and the regulations at 28 C.F.R. Chapter V. A Program Statement can be rewritten — as this one was in June 2026 — without a court saying a word.

What “medical classification” actually means

Medical classification is a two-sided sorting system. The Bureau rates facilities and it rates people, then tries to put the second inside the first. PS 6031.06 states it directly: “Medical Classification is the system of assigning a care level to each Bureau institution, and a medical and mental health care level assignment to each inmate. The system has four care levels.” (PS 6031.06 at p. 12.)

The policy’s definitions section explains what drives each side of the match. For a person, “the care level is determined by their medical needs and based primarily on the chronicity, complexity, intensity, and frequency of interventions and services that are required, as well as an inmate’s functional capability.” For a facility, “the care level is based primarily on the clinical capabilities and resources of the institution and the surrounding community, as well as specific medical missions (e.g. dialysis, oncology, etc.).” The stated purpose of classifying both: “Classifying both the inmate and facility allows the Bureau to match inmate medical and mental health needs with a facility resourced to care for those needs.” (PS 6031.06 at p. 5.)

Two practical consequences follow, and both matter to families.

First, a care level is not a diagnosis. It is a resource rating. Two people with the same condition can carry different care levels because one manages it independently and the other needs frequent clinical contact. The policy language turns on function and frequency, not on the name of the disease.

Second, care level is not the same thing as security level. A person can be a Care Level 3 patient at a low-security FCI or at a penitentiary. Medical classification and security designation run on parallel tracks and are reconciled by the designators at the Designation and Sentence Computation Center. When they conflict — a minimum-security scoring person who needs Care Level 3 services — medical need usually narrows the list of available institutions, which is why medically complex people often land farther from home than their security score alone would predict.

The four medical care levels

This is the operative rule. It is reproduced below as PS 6031.06 states it, at p. 12–13. Nothing in the table is a paraphrase of a paraphrase; it is the Bureau’s own text, and the page anchor lets you check it against the PDF.

Care level	What the institution is	What the policy says (PS 6031.06 at pp. 12–13)
Care Level 1	General-population institutions, including most camps	“Care Level 1 institutions house inmates who are generally healthy but may have limited medical problems easily managed by Health Services staff and supplemented by existing community resources.”
Care Level 2	Institutions equipped for stable chronic disease	“Care Level 2 institutions house inmates who have stable chronic conditions managed by Health Services staff and supplemented by existing community resources. Care Level 2 inmates generally self-manage their conditions and need infrequent visits to medical specialists or community facilities.”
Care Level 3	Institutions with enhanced staffing and specialty access	“Care Level 3 institutions house inmates who have more complex medical conditions and are more fragile. They require frequent clinical contacts with Health Services staff and more visits to community medical specialists. They may also periodically require hospitalization to stabilize their conditions.”
Care Level 4	Medical Referral Centers (MRCs)	“Care Level 4 institutions are the Bureau’s MRC. Inmates housed at MRCs may require extensive medical and nursing care. Some inmates may require 24-hour nursing care including assistance with activities of daily living such as feeding, toileting, and dressing. These inmates may have frequent visits to medical specialists or hospitalizations for specialized medical care that isn’t available in the MRC.”

Read the four rungs as a ladder of frequency and dependence, not severity of label:

• Level 1 — you go to sick call occasionally; nothing needs watching.
• Level 2 — you have something chronic (hypertension, diabetes, HIV, asthma), you take medication, you attend a chronic care clinic, and you handle the day-to-day yourself.
• Level 3 — staff have to see you often, the community specialist trips are routine rather than rare, and hospital admissions happen.
• Level 4 — you may need skilled nursing, possibly around the clock, possibly with help eating, using the toilet, and dressing.

The Bureau does not publish a public crosswalk of diagnosis to care level. PS 6031.06 points staff to internal “clinical guidance on Care Level Classification for Medical Conditions or Disabilities located on the Health Services Division (HSD) page of the Bureau’s intranet site” (PS 6031.06 at p. 12). That document is not on bop.gov. Anyone who tells you that a specific condition automatically produces a specific care level is guessing at a document they have not read. What is public is the four-rung definition above, and the assignment process below.

Medical Referral Centers — what Care Level 4 really is

An MRC is a federal prison that is also a hospital. PS 6031.06 defines them as facilities that “provide a full range of diagnostic and therapeutic services consistent with the individual mission, and a wide range of inpatient specialty consultative and treatment services,” listing on-site inpatient services, enhanced-ambulatory care, ambulatory care, behavioral health, end-of-life care, surgical services, laboratory services, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. (PS 6031.06 at p. 6.) Our page on federal medical centers covers the individual facilities.

Three features of MRCs are worth knowing before anyone asks to be sent to one.

Staffing is different. “Institutions housing inmates requiring 24-hour skilled nursing care (MRCs, institutions having a Short Stay Unit, etc.) will have clinicians on site 24 hours” — everywhere else, “[e]xcept for MRCs, institutions will not have clinicians on site 24 hours,” and coverage runs through an on-call system. (PS 6031.06 at pp. 13, 17.)

Inpatient and end-of-life care are concentrated there — but not exclusively. PS 6031.06 authorizes inpatient services and end-of-life care “primarily at MRCs and facilities authorized by the Medical Director to operate long-term care units.” (PS 6031.06 at p. 14, emphasis added.) In practice that means a designated Care Level 3 institution with an approved long-term care or 24-hour care unit can deliver the same category of service without being an MRC. If you are trying to understand where a seriously ill family member can realistically be housed, “MRC or nothing” is the wrong frame. Where the need is age rather than a single acute condition, a separate policy layer applies on top of the care level — accommodations, cell and assistive-device assignment, and the aging-offender provisions generally; our page on elderly prisoners in the federal Bureau of Prisons sets those out.

An MRC is a prison first. The setting is secure. Custody rules, counts, visiting rules and discipline all apply. Placement is a medical designation, not a hospital admission you can request the way you would in the community.

How an institution gets its care level

Institution care levels are set nationally, not locally. “The HSD assigns institution care levels based on an analysis of the physical plant, community-based resources, local labor market, and impact on other correctional programs. Increased staffing levels and ancillary/specialty services are needed at institutions that have higher care level assignments as determined by the Assistant Director, HSD.” (PS 6031.06 at p. 12.)

Unpack those four criteria, because they explain a lot of otherwise baffling designations:

1. Physical plant. Elevators, accessible cells, ground-floor housing, an infirmary with running water and exam space, a unit that can be locked down separately. An old institution on a hill with narrow walkways cannot be made Care Level 3 by hiring staff.
2. Community-based resources. A prison twenty minutes from a tertiary hospital with a cardiology service can carry sicker patients than one two hours from the nearest MRI.
3. Local labor market. Care Level 3 needs nurses, mid-level providers and physicians who will work at that salary in that county. This is the criterion nobody expects and the one that most often caps a facility’s level.
4. Impact on other correctional programs. Escorted medical trips consume correctional officers. A facility that spends its post coverage on outside appointments cannot also run recreation, education and visiting normally.

These are also the criteria that change. Facility care levels are not permanent. When BOP closes or converts institutions — as it did with the July 2026 closures and mission changes — the map of where a given care level is available moves with them.

How an individual gets a care level, and when it is reviewed

This is the sentence families should memorize, because it is the hook for every request:

“The CD or designee physician makes a care level assessment upon an inmate’s arrival, and regularly reviews and revises medical care levels at each chronic care clinic visit, and as the inmate’s health needs change. Institutions are required to review and update inmate care levels at every comprehensive medical evaluation encounter.” — PS 6031.06 at p. 13

Four triggers, then. Arrival. Each chronic care clinic visit. Any material change in health. Every comprehensive medical evaluation. “CD” is the institution’s Clinical Director — the physician who runs Health Services.

The “comprehensive medical evaluation” is itself new. One of the changes PS 6031.06 lists on its first page is that it “[c]hanged requirements for both a history and physical and a 14- or 30-day chronic care clinic, combining these assessments into a comprehensive medical evaluation.” (PS 6031.06 at p. 1.) Under the old policy those were two separate encounters on two separate clocks. They are now one encounter — and that one encounter now carries a mandatory care-level review.

Two related mechanics matter in practice:

Medical holds. A person approved for surgery or an invasive diagnostic procedure within 60 days of a scheduled transfer, recently discharged from a community hospital, or mid-treatment for conditions including cancer, hepatitis C, latent tuberculosis, MRSA, varicella and TB, “will be placed” on a Medical Hold using the Medical Duty Status form. Only the Clinical Director or designee can lift it (only a dentist, for a dental hold). The roster is reviewed “ideally every two weeks but at a minimum monthly.” (PS 6031.06 at pp. 15–16.) A medical hold stops a transfer — including a transfer to a halfway house or home confinement.

Outside physicians. People are “not generally permitted to use non-contracted physicians or other providers from the community, including those with whom they had a prior relationship.” A person previously treated by a community physician may request an examination by that physician, at the person’s own expense, and only if the Warden — after consulting the Regional Director and the Bureau Medical Director — permits it. Even then: “Such action will not be routine and should be infrequent,” the Bureau physician is present, and the Bureau “is under no obligation to carry out the visitor’s recommendations,” though if the recommendations are not followed “an entry will be made in the inmate’s health record explaining the decision.” The person signs the BP-A0621 authorization for release of medical records. (PS 6031.06 at p. 11.)

That last clause — the required record entry explaining why an outside recommendation was rejected — is one of the most useful documents in the file if care later becomes the subject of a grievance or a court filing.

What changed on 22 June 2026

This is the section no competing page has, because most pages describing federal medical care levels still describe a policy that was rescinded in June 2026.

PS 6031.06 rescinded PS 6031.05 CN-2, Patient Care, dated 14 March 2025, and lists its own changes on page 1:

Change stated in PS 6031.06	What it means in practice
“Revised organization of the program statement for ease of navigation.”	Section numbering moved. Old pin-cites to 6031.05 no longer land.
“Removed Utilization Review section.”	The published five-category classification of care — and the prospective/concurrent/retrospective review procedure around it — is gone from the Program Statement.
“Changed requirements for both a history and physical and a 14- or 30-day chronic care clinic, combining these assessments into a comprehensive medical evaluation.”	One encounter instead of two, and it carries a mandatory care-level review.
“Added ability to declare an inmate death in certain circumstances.”	New death-declaration authority inside the institution.
“Removed Radiology section.”	Radiology is no longer governed by a dedicated section of the patient-care policy.

The five-category “levels of care” scheme is no longer in the policy

Until 22 June 2026, PS 6031.05 sorted medical interventions — not people — into five categories: Medically Necessary–Emergency, Medically Necessary–Non-emergency, Medically Acceptable–Not Always Necessary, Limited Medical Value, and Extraordinary. Those categories drove a formal utilization-review process: prospective review before certain specialty referrals, concurrent review of ongoing care, retrospective review after the fact, run through an institution Utilization Review Committee (URC) with escalating approval levels for the “Limited Medical Value” and “Extraordinary Care” categories. (PS 6031.05 CN-2, Utilization Review section; rescinded edition, no longer published by BOP.)

None of that framework is carried into PS 6031.06. If a page, a book, or a consultant tells you that your loved one’s surgery was denied because it was classified “Limited Medical Value,” they are describing a taxonomy that the Bureau’s own patient-care policy no longer contains.

One honest qualification, because the distinction matters if you are drafting anything: the Utilization Review Committee itself did not disappear. PS 6031.06 still routes several decisions through it — Bureau-funded medical furloughs must be “approved through the existing Utilization Review process prior to the furlough” (PS 6031.06 at p. 14); the URC meeting is “the ideal venue to review inmates on Medical Hold” (at p. 15); custom orthotics “are to be approved through the Utilization Review Committee” (§ 16, Durable Medical Equipment and Devices); and “[t]he CD, through URC, determines if rehabilitative services are clinically indicated” (§ 23, Rehabilitation Services). What was removed is the section that defined the five categories and the review procedure. The committee survives; the published taxonomy and the procedure around it do not.

That is a real gap, and it should be named as one rather than papered over: as of 22 June 2026 the Bureau’s public patient-care policy references a utilization-review process whose criteria it no longer publishes. Where the criteria now live is not stated in the Program Statement.

Citations you should stop using

If you are relying on a document — a letter, a grievance, a memorandum, an older web page — that cites any of the following, it is out of date:

• “Program Statement 6031.05 (2024)” or “Patient Care (2024)” — superseded. The last edition of 6031.05 was CN-2, dated 14 March 2025, and it was rescinded on 22 June 2026.
• The five “levels of care” as a live classification — removed from the Program Statement.
• Any pin-cite into PS 6031.05’s section numbering — 6031.06 reorganized the document.

Conduct and care decisions that predate 22 June 2026 are still measured against the edition in force at the time, which is why the Bureau retains the superseded text. Cite the edition that was operative on the date in question, and say which edition you are citing. Our patient care policy explainer covers the current edition; the explainer at Patient Care (BOP Program Statement 6031.05) covers the superseded edition, which remains the right citation for events before 22 June 2026; and medical designations and care levels covers the classification system itself.

Applied Insight — Christopher Zoukis, JD, MBA, Managing Director: When a policy is reissued, the first thing we do on an open medical matter is re-date every citation in the file. A well-written grievance built on a rescinded Program Statement is worse than a plain one, because it invites a response that answers the citation instead of the problem. Quote the current edition, quote it verbatim, give the page, and attach the page. Where the current edition is silent — as PS 6031.06 now is on utilization-review criteria — say that it is silent and ask what standard was applied. Silence in a policy is a question you are entitled to ask, not a hole you should fill with the old rule.

Mental health care levels 1 to 4

Mental health classification runs on a parallel four-level scale with its own criteria and its own required treatment frequencies. PS 6031.06 points to the Psychology Services Manual for it (PS 6031.06 at p. 12); the Psychology Services Manual, PS 5310.17, in turn points to Treatment and Care of Inmates with Mental Illness for the definitions (PS 5310.17 at p. 16). The operative definitions are in PS 5310.16 at pp. 8–10.

Level	Name in policy	Who meets it	Required treatment
CARE1-MH	“No Significant Mental Health Care”	No significant functional impairment from mental illness and no need for regular intervention; no history of serious functional impairment, or a history plus consistent appropriate help-seeking	None required. No treatment plan required. Services, if provided, are documented.
CARE2-MH	“Routine Outpatient Mental Health Care or Crisis-Oriented Mental Health Care”	Mental illness requiring routine ongoing outpatient care and/or “brief, crisis-oriented mental health care of significant intensity; e.g., placement on suicide watch or behavioral observation status”	Documented diagnosis and care level with rationale; individualized treatment plan reviewed and updated at least every 12 months; evidence-based psychosocial interventions at least monthly (group at least every other week)
CARE3-MH	“Enhanced Outpatient Mental Health Care or Residential Mental Health Care”	Mental illness requiring weekly interventions, or placement in a residential Psychology Treatment Program	Documented diagnosis and rationale; treatment plan reviewed and updated at least every 6 months; evidence-based psychosocial interventions at least weekly
CARE4-MH	“Inpatient Psychiatric Care”	“gravely disabled and cannot function in general population in a CARE3-MH environment”	Takes place only in a Medical Referral Center. Treatment plan reviewed and updated at least every 90 days; interventions and/or individual contacts at least weekly

Three points from the same policy that families ask about constantly:

Diagnosis alone does not set the level, but it constrains it. “Inmates diagnosed with major mental illnesses and/or currently taking antipsychotic medications are not ordinarily classified as CARE1-MH due to their risk of relapse and the lack of resources to address such a relapse at a CARE1-MH facility.” Someone released from an MRC after acute treatment is “ordinarily classified as CARE3-MH.” (PS 5310.16 at p. 9.)

Refusing treatment does not erase the level. If a person declines the treatment their level calls for, “a treatment plan is developed and implemented to frequently assess the inmate’s mental status, build rapport, and encourage engagement,” ordinarily including “a monthly attempt to engage.” A person who refuses may also “be considered for involuntary commitment.” (PS 5310.16 at p. 10.)

The level travels. A Mental Health Transfer Summary must be completed “every time a mentally ill (CARE2-MH, CARE3-MH, and CARE4-MH) inmate transfers within the Bureau — to an RRC, home confinement, or directly to the community.” (PS 5310.16 at p. 24.) That summary is the continuity-of-care document; it is also, for counsel, the single best record of what the sending institution thought the person needed.

Related policy: treatment and care of inmates with mental illness, psychology services, and secure mental health units — the latter governed by PS 5335.02, effective 19 March 2026, which rescinded PS 5335.01 (23 January 2023). Our mental health programs page covers the treatment programs themselves.

How care level drives designation

Designation is where classification stops being administrative and starts being the thing that determines whether a family can visit.

18 U.S.C. § 3621(b) tells the Bureau to designate the place of imprisonment “subject to bed availability, the prisoner’s security designation, the prisoner’s programmatic needs, the prisoner’s mental and medical health needs, any request made by the prisoner related to faith-based needs, recommendations of the sentencing court, and other security concerns,” and “to the extent practicable, in a facility within 500 driving miles” of the person’s primary residence. (18 U.S.C. § 3621(b).) Medical and mental health need is one of the statutory inputs — and in practice it is often the binding one, because there are far fewer Care Level 3 and Care Level 4 beds than Care Level 1 and 2 beds.

Mechanically, three offices touch it:

• The Designation and Sentence Computation Center (DSCC) in Grand Prairie, Texas makes the initial designation under PS 5100.08, Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification.
• The Office of Medical Designations and Transportation (OMDT) handles medical and psychiatric designations and transfers, including transfer to an MRC on a BP-A0770 referral request. (PS 6031.06 at p. 38; PS 5310.16 at p. 24.)
• The institution Clinical Director controls Medical Holds, which override an otherwise-approved transfer.

The interaction with security designation is covered in depth on our designation page and in the policy explainer on security designation and custody classification. The short version for medical matters: medical need narrows the list, security scoring picks from what is left. That is why a Care Level 3 designation can move someone a thousand miles from home even when their security points would have supported a camp forty minutes away.

Private and contract facilities

The Bureau contracts with privately operated and other non-Bureau facilities for part of its population. This is where the honest answer is it varies, and where a lot of published material overstates what can be said.

What PS 6031.06 does say is that “[s]pecialized medical, mental health, and dental services that cannot be provided within facilities or via telehealth will be contracted in the community” (PS 6031.06 at p. 14), and that infirmary-level care includes contracted community settings — long-term acute care, sub-acute and skilled nursing facilities, dementia units, and outside hospital admissions (PS 6031.06 at p. 5). So contracted care is built into the system at the service level for everyone, whatever institution they are in.

What PS 6031.06 does not do is set out a separate care-level scheme for contract facilities. The four-level system it defines is a system for “each Bureau institution.” The care level of a contract facility, the scope of medical services in a particular contract, and the mechanism for moving someone out of a contract facility for medical reasons are governed by that facility’s contract and the Bureau’s contract-oversight policies rather than by the patient-care Program Statement. Those contracts are not published as Program Statements.

Two things follow, and both are actionable:

1. Do not assume the care-level vocabulary applies. If a family member is in a contract facility and staff there use the phrase “care level,” ask what document they are applying. It may be the contract, not PS 6031.06.
2. The route out is a Bureau route. Requests to be redesignated to a Bureau institution for medical reasons still go through the Bureau — an Inmate Request to Staff to the unit team and Health Services, and if that fails, the administrative remedy process.

Where the honest answer is that the record is not public, the honest thing to do is say so and identify what governs the variation. That is the case here.

Why care level matters — six concrete consequences

Here is why care level matters, tied to policy rather than to generalities.

1. It decides where you go, and how far from home. Medical need is one of the § 3621(b) designation factors, and Care Level 3 and 4 beds are geographically concentrated. Distance drives visiting frequency, which drives everything else about how a sentence is actually served. See inmate visitation.

2. It decides whether a transfer can happen at all. A Medical Hold stops movement. A care-level mismatch stops a transfer to a lower-level facility even when everything else is approved. This includes transfers to a residential reentry center or home confinement — see release preparation and transfers.

3. It sets the required frequency of clinical contact. Care Level 2 means chronic care clinic and self-management. Care Level 3 means “frequent clinical contacts” and routine specialist visits. On the mental health side, the frequencies are explicit: monthly at CARE2-MH, weekly at CARE3-MH and CARE4-MH. Those frequencies are how you tell whether the care actually being delivered matches the level assigned.

4. It affects what the person pays. The Bureau charges “a fee for health care services of $2.00 per health care visit” for visits the person requested (28 C.F.R. § 549.70), but a substantial list of services is free: “(a) Health care services based on staff referrals; (b) Staff-approved follow-up treatment for a chronic condition; (c) Preventive health care services; (d) Emergency services; (e) Prenatal care; (f) Diagnosis or treatment of chronic infectious diseases; (g) Mental health care; or (h) Substance abuse treatment.” (28 C.F.R. § 549.72.) Chronic care follow-up and all mental health care are fee-exempt. Nobody should be skipping care over $2.00, and if a fee is being charged for an exempt service, that is a documentable problem.

5. It shapes programming and reentry. Care level constrains which institutions are available, and institution availability constrains which programs are available there — education, UNICOR, RDAP, and First Step Act time credit programming all vary by site. A designation that solves a medical problem can create a programming one.

6. It builds — or fails to build — the record. Care level assignments, chronic care notes, medical holds, MRC referrals and the entries explaining why an outside physician’s recommendation was not followed are all in the health record. If a case ever reaches a motion based on medical condition, that record is the evidence. A person whose deterioration is documented at every comprehensive medical evaluation has a file. A person whose complaints never made it past an informal conversation does not.

Where people get stuck with a medical care level

“The care level is wrong and nobody will change it.” The assignment is clinical and it belongs to the Clinical Director. The route is a written Inmate Request to Staff to Health Services asking for a care-level review, referencing the policy trigger — a change in health needs, or the mandatory review at the next comprehensive medical evaluation (PS 6031.06 at p. 13). Ask for the review; do not ask for a specific level. If it goes nowhere, the administrative remedy process is next, and it has deadlines.

“We can’t see the medical records.” A family member cannot get records directly. The incarcerated person can request their own health record, and can authorize release to counsel or family on the BP-A0621. See medical records access. Do this early. Records requested in a crisis arrive after the crisis.

“The transfer we were promised keeps not happening.” Check for a Medical Hold. Only the Clinical Director or designee can remove one, and the roster is supposed to be reviewed at least monthly (PS 6031.06 at pp. 15–16). Ask, in writing, whether a Medical Hold is in place and what the target date is.

“Our own doctor says the treatment plan is wrong.” The Bureau is under no obligation to follow an outside recommendation — but if it does not, the policy requires a health-record entry explaining the decision (PS 6031.06 at p. 11). Ask for that entry. It converts a disagreement into a documented one.

“They keep saying it’s not medically necessary.” Since 22 June 2026 that phrase no longer maps to a published category in the patient-care Program Statement. Ask, in writing, what criteria were applied and by whom. You are entitled to an answer, and the absence of a published standard is itself worth putting on the record.

Frequently Asked Questions About Medical Care Levels

Reviewed for legal accuracy by Elizabeth Franklin-Best, Esq., Principal Attorney·September 2026