Pursuant to Chapter 637 of the 2024 Acts of Assembly (“Act"), the State Corporation Commission (“Commission") has performed its first triennial review of the effectiveness of the Commonwealth’s Serious Medical Condition (“SMC") policy, which provides medically vulnerable residential customers with temporary protection from utility service disconnection upon submission of a certified SMC form. As part of its review, the Commission Staff (“Staff") collected data from regulated electric, gas, water, and wastewater utilities regarding their SMC program participation, processing, customer outcomes, financial impacts, and operational considerations related to outages.

Overall, the Commission concludes that the SMC policy is effective. Utilities report that customers are generally able to utilize the SMC process to achieve delays in utility disconnections. Only a subset of utilities contacted by Staff had data available showing how many customers receiving an SMC-related delay were ultimately not disconnected even after the expiration of the protection period. The available data indicated that most customers receiving an SMC-related delay were ultimately not disconnected even after the expiration of the protection period. This outcome suggests that the SMC process provides meaningful protection to medically vulnerable customers. However, upon discovery that several utilities do not currently track whether customers are disconnected following an SMC-related delay, the Commission Staff suggests that all utilities begin tracking and reporting this metric to Staff in future years, to support more robust evaluations in future reviews, pursuant to the Act.

Utility responses also suggest that the SMC form and process are generally workable, but opportunities exist to strengthen validation, improve awareness of the SMC program, and improve clarity of the SMC form regarding acceptable equipment. Regarding validation, one suggestion received is to include the patient’s date of birth on the form, as it would assist with applicant verification. On program awareness, Staff received reports from the utilities that customers may not be aware of the program. Staff is willing to work with utilities and the Commission’s Information Resources Division to explore ways to improve overall customer awareness of the SMC program.

Related to the SMC form, several utilities requested clearer guidance on the types of medical equipment or conditions that qualify a customer for an SMC-related disconnection delay. While greater clarity may in some instances support a more efficient utility investigation of an SMC request with the certifying medical professional, Staff notes that the existing form language – specifically the instruction to list “equipment prescribed and/or equipment required for treatment of condition (if any)" (emphasis added) – suggests there may be instances where a licensed physician or licensed nurse practitioner may consider an applicant as qualifying for a disconnection delay even in the absence of medical equipment. As such, Staff does not consider provision of medical equipment information, by itself, as a qualifying factor for an SMC-related disconnection delay, and Staff suggests that the existing language should remain unchanged to preserve the professional judgment of the medical personnel.

Taken together, the utility responses and Staff’s review demonstrate that the SMC policy is operating effectively, widely understood within the utility community, and providing essential protections to customers with serious medical conditions. This report includes suggested changes in data tracking, and educational outreach with the aim to improve accessibility to the SMC policy for residential utility customers.