Powers of Authority

  1. Law
  2. Tennessee Code
  3. Consolidated Governments and Local Governmental Functions and Entities
  4. Metropolitan Hospital Authority Act
  5. Operation and Powers
  6. Powers of Authority

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An authority shall constitute a public body and a body corporate and politic, exercising public powers, and having all the powers necessary or convenient to carry out and effectuate the purposes and provisions of this chapter, including, but not limited to, the powers to:

  1. Investigate hospital, medical and health conditions and into the means and methods of improving such conditions;
  2. Study and make recommendations concerning the plan of any city or municipality located within its boundaries in relation to the provision of adequate hospital, medical and nursing facilities;
  3. Prepare, carry out and operate hospital projects;
  4. Provide and operate outpatient departments, maternity clinics, decentralized primary health care facilities, and any other clinics customarily operated in or by hospitals in metropolitan centers;
  5. Provide the clinical setting for the teaching and instruction programs of schools for medical students, interns and physicians; and provide teaching and instruction programs for nurses, and all other medical or paramedical personnel;
  6. Provide and maintain continuous resident physician, intern and other medical services;
  7. Establish rates, fees, charges and other compensation to be paid by patients for any services rendered in its hospital facilities;
  8. Participate in any governmental programs, such as medicare and medicaid, and obtain reimbursement under medicare and medicaid for services rendered to patients;
  9. Appoint all administrative, professional, technical and other employees; appoint legal counsel and an auditor; enter into contracts of employment with such employees and appointees and fix their compensation and terms of employment, subject to the budget controls of the creating and participating municipalities; and remove such employees or appointees;
  10. Enter into agreements with the creating municipality and participating municipalities with respect to the manner of transfer of hospital employees of such municipalities to the authority and with respect to the retention by such employees of existing civil service status and accrued pension, disability, hospitalization, death, or other fringe benefits;
  11. Enter into a plan for pension, disability, hospitalization and death benefits for the officers and employees of the authority, either by contract with the creating municipality and participating municipalities, or otherwise;
  12. Adopt necessary rules and regulations for the governance of the authority and its employees, and appoint such committees or subcommittees as it shall deem advisable, and fix their duties and responsibilities;
  13. Subject to the provisions for letting of public contracts as provided in the charter or governing law of the creating municipality, enter into contracts for necessary supplies, equipment or services incident to the operation of its business;
  14. Do all things necessary in connection with the construction, repair, reconstruction, management, supervision, and control of its operation and facilities, including, but not limited to, the hospital and all departments of the hospital;
  15. Accept donations of money, personal property or real estate for the benefit of the authority and take title to the donations from any person, firm, corporation or society desiring to make such donations;
  16. Determine and regulate the conditions under which the privilege of practicing within any hospital operated by the authority may be available to physicians, and promulgate reasonable rules and regulations governing the conduct of physicians and nurses while on duty in the hospital;
  17. Make rules and regulations governing the admission of patients to, and the care, conduct, and treatment of patients in, the hospital;
  18. Determine whether and to what extent patients presented to the hospital for treatment are subjects for financial subsidy because of their income level, family size or other established criteria;
  19. Maintain and operate isolation wards for the care and treatment of mental, contagious or other similar diseases;
  20. Provide for the construction, reconstruction, improvement, alteration or repair of any hospital project or any part of a hospital project, subject to the budget limitations that may be imposed by the creating municipality or any participating municipality;
  21. Act as agent for the federal government in connection with the acquisition, construction, operation or management of a hospital project, or any part of a hospital project;
  22. Arrange with any city or municipality located in whole or in part within its boundaries or with a government for the planning, replanning, furnishing, installing, opening or closing of streets, roads, roadways, alleys, sidewalks, other places or facilities and utilities, or for the acquisition by such city, municipality, or a government of property options or property rights or for the furnishing of property or services in connection with a project;
  23. Arrange with the state, its subdivisions and agencies, and any county, city or municipality of the state, to the extent that it is within the scope of each of their respective functions:
    1. Cause the services customarily provided by each of them to be rendered for the benefit of such hospital authority; and
    2. Lease or rent any of the dwellings or other accommodations or any of the lands, buildings, structures or facilities embraced in any hospital project and establish and revise the rents or charges for the lease or rental;
  24. Purchase, lease, improve, obtain options upon, acquire by gift, grant, bequest, devise, or otherwise any personal property, or any interest in personal property from any person, firm, corporation, city, municipality, or government, for any of the purposes provided for in this chapter;
  25. Sell, exchange, transfer, assign, or pledge any personal property, or any interest in personal property to any person, firm, corporation, municipality, city, or government;
  26. Self-insure or provide for the insurance of the property or operations of the authority against such risks as the authority may deem advisable;
  27. In connection with any loan by a government, agree to limitations upon the exercise of any powers conferred upon the authority by this chapter;
  28. Invest any funds held in reserves or sinking funds, or any temporarily excess funds not required for immediate disbursement, in property or securities in which trustees, guardians, executors, administrators, and others acting in a fiduciary capacity may legally invest funds subject to their control;
  29. Sue and be sued;
  30. Have a seal and alter the seal;
  31. Have perpetual succession; and
  32. Make and execute contracts and other instruments necessary or convenient to the exercise of the powers of the authority.


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