The regulated part · Licensure & Plan Review
The Question That Changes Everything
Some healthcare spaces are licensed facilities reviewed by the state. Some are commercial tenant buildouts. The difference decides the cost, the schedule and the standard.
Tell us the space, the specialty, and whether the facility will be licensed. Those three answers decide almost everything else.
Licensed?
The first question, because it changes the whole project
ICRA
Containment built and monitored, not just described
Occupied
Clinics keep seeing patients while we work
Licensed
General contractor, licensed in the state of Florida
It is assumed rather than established
Owners, brokers and sometimes designers assume a project's regulatory category from what similar-looking projects did. That assumption gets carried through leasing, budgeting and design, and it is tested for the first time at permit — which is far too late for it to be wrong.
The assumption is also expensive to unwind because it propagates. A category assumed at leasing sets the rent the deal can carry, which sets the pro forma, which sets the design budget. Correcting the category late means revisiting all of it, not just the drawings.
What to establish, in writing
- Whether the facility will hold a state license, and of what type.
- Whether state agency plan review applies before construction.
- What code edition and standards the review will be against.
- Who is responsible for making the submission.
- A realistic duration for review, in the program.
How to get the answer
Ask your design professional or healthcare counsel, in writing, before the lease is signed: what license will this facility hold, does state plan review apply, what code edition governs, and what is a realistic duration for review.
It is a short email and the answer is definitive. It is also the single highest-value action available on a healthcare project, and it is skipped more often than any other step in this list.
How we handle it
- 01Ask the licensure question before quoting anything.
- 02Decline to price on an assumption about the category.
- 03Build the program around real review durations.
- 04Build to the approved documents, not to variations of them.
Get the answer in writing from your design team or your healthcare attorney at the very start. It is a short email and it is the single highest-value thing anybody does on one of these projects.
Said plainly
Where we stop
This is general information and it is not legal or regulatory advice. Your design professional, your healthcare counsel and the licensing agency determine what applies to your facility.
FAQ
Common questions
- How do we know if we need plan review?
- Ask your design professional or healthcare counsel in writing, at the very start. Do not assume from similar projects.
- What happens if we get it wrong?
- It surfaces at permit, after leasing, budgeting and design have all been built on the assumption.
- Is this page advice?
- No. General information only. Your design team and the agency decide.
- Will you price without the answer?
- No. The category changes the project too much.
What we build
Medical Office
A private physician practice doing examinations and consultation. Usually a commercial tenant buildout with clinical requirements layered on top.
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Dental
A dental practice is defined by what runs underneath it — water, air, vacuum, drainage and data, all arriving at fixed points in each operatory.
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Ambulatory Surgery
An ambulatory surgery center is a licensed facility. State plan review, code requirements for operating rooms, medical gas and air handling all apply, and each has a real schedule consequence.
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Imaging & Radiology
X-ray, CT and MRI each impose physical requirements that a normal building does not anticipate — shielding, floor loading, power and, for MRI, a magnetic field that never turns off.
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Infusion & Oncology
An infusion suite is a comfortable space with an unglamorous engineering problem attached: the compounding pharmacy that supplies it.
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Urgent Care
Usually a prototype rolled out across sites, which makes repeatability the value and the landlord's delivery date the constraint.
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More the regulated part
Infection Control & ICRA
Construction in or near a healthcare space releases dust, and dust carries organisms that matter to people who are already unwell. Containment is a built assembly with a measurable performance.
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Medical Gas
Medical gas piping looks like plumbing and is governed by an entirely separate regime of qualification, installation and independent verification.
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Life Safety & ILSM
Building work interrupts alarms, sprinklers, exits and smoke compartments. In an occupied healthcare facility every one of those interruptions has to be planned and compensated for.
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Next step
Find out what is actually wrong with it.
An inspection, photographs of what we found, and a written scope. If the honest answer is that it can wait another season, that is the answer you will get.