Section 166. There shall be within the executive office of health and human services a health facilities appeals board, hereinafter called the board, which shall make determinations on appeals filed pursuant to section twenty-five E of chapter one hundred and eleven. The board shall consist of five persons to be appointed for terms of three years by the governor, at least three of whom shall be consumers of health care services who are not officers or employees of, and do not bear any fiduciary relationship to a person or institution providing health care services. The legal representation of the personal interests of an individual engaged in health care shall not, for the purposes of this section, constitute a fiduciary relationship. One such consumer member shall be a member of the bar of the commonwealth and shall be designated by the governor to serve as chairman of the board. Persons appointed to the board shall be knowledgeable in matters pertaining to the delivery of health care services; and the governor, in making said appointments, shall consider any persons recommended to him for such purpose by the comprehensive health planning agencies established pursuant to sections three hundred and fourteen (a) and three hundred and fourteen (b) of the Federal Public Health Service Act.
Each member of the board shall be paid fifty dollars for each day spent in the performance of his duty, not to exceed six thousand dollars in any fiscal year, and shall be reimbursed for expenses actually and necessarily incurred in the discharge of his duties.
The board, subject to appropriation, may employ such persons, none of whom shall be subject to the provisions of chapter thirty-one or section nine A of chapter thirty, as may be required to discharge its responsibilities. Such persons may include, without limitation, hearing officers and persons experienced in serving as masters and auditors in the supreme judicial and superior courts.