---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH CARE FACILITIES - LICENSING (Allows physician practices to maintain their license standards, even if a hospital system owns the practice.)"
description: "AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH CARE FACILITIES - LICENSING (Allows physician practices to maintain their license standards, even if a hospital system owns the practice.)"
jurisdiction: "us/states/ri"
legislature: "Rhode Island General Assembly"
session: "2017"
identifier: "HB 5840"
citation: "Rhode Island HB 5840 (2017)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: ["Hospitals", "Health & Safety", "Licenses", "Physicians"]
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Fogarty", "McEntee", "Tanzi"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 11
vote_count: 1
first_action: "2017-03-02"
last_action: "2017-07-18"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/37556f95-40a1-4bc2-a48c-98f741735d9f"
source_url: "http://status.rilin.state.ri.us/"
source_hash: "7361d1cae6af4c6abc3c53f376c1fee3bda74ae10a918bdd041db42a43c0bc3f"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ri"]
---

# Rhode Island HB 5840 (2017) — AN ACT RELATING TO HEALTH CARE FACILITIES - LICENSING (Allows physician practices to maintain their license standards, even if a hospital system owns the practice.)

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **5840 SUB A** (committee substitute) — [source](http://webserver.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText/BillText17/HouseText17/H5840A.pdf)

## Votes

- PASSAGE — **70–0** (pass) · legislature

## Sponsors

- Fogarty — primary (person)
- McEntee — primary (person)
- Tanzi — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2017-03-02** 03/02/2017 Introduced, referred to House Finance `referral-committee, introduction`
- **2017-05-19** 05/19/2017 Scheduled for hearing and/or consideration (05/24/2017)
- **2017-05-24** 05/24/2017 Committee recommended measure be held for further study
- **2017-06-16** 06/16/2017 Scheduled for consideration (06/20/2017)
- **2017-06-20** 06/20/2017 Committee recommends passage of Sub A `committee-passage-favorable`
- **2017-06-24** 06/24/2017 Placed on House Calendar (06/26/2017)
- **2017-06-26** 06/26/2017 House passed Sub A `passage`
- **2017-06-29** 06/29/2017 Placed on the Senate Consent Calendar (06/29/2017)
- **2017-06-29** 06/29/2017 Senate passed Sub A in concurrence `passage`
- **2017-07-13** 07/13/2017 Transmitted to Governor `executive-receipt`
- **2017-07-18** 07/18/2017 Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/37556f95-40a1-4bc2-a48c-98f741735d9f`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Rhode Island legislature records).