The Georgia House Health Committee heard nearly an hour of testimony Tuesday on a revised version of a bill that would allow new hospitals to be built in counties of fewer than 50,000 people without a “certificate of need” from state regulators. However, they took no action on SB 99 by state Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, and made no indication of when they might revisit the bill.
“We are looking at a sub that came in right when we walked in the door,” said Committee Chairman Sen. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville. “We have a two-hour committee rule, and it’s not fair to this committee to subject them to a quick vote on this. We are going to take our time and that’s all for today.”
Dolezal presented his revised version of the bill, including changes that were made after meeting with representatives from the Georgia Hospital Association and others. According to Dolezal, he included four of five recommendations from the Georgia Hospital Association in the new version of the bill.
Later in the hearing, Anna Adams, who was representing the association, said that while they appreciated Dolezal’s work on the changes, they would still “oppose the bill in its current form.”
“We are grateful for the changes we’ve been able to get from the Lt. Governor’s office and Senate leadership, but most of the changes reflected language change and there are still some outlying changes that we would like to see,” she said.
One of the changes was the addition of a two-year sunset on the exemptions. Dolezal said he just “didn’t agree with the automatic sunset on the process and chose not to include it.”
The new version of the bill defines the facilities that would qualify for the exemption. They would be “short stay general acute care hospitals with an average length of stay less than 30 days. The exemption would apply to new hospitals whose governing body has adopted a resolution in support of the hospital.”
“This is a local control piece that allows the governing body of the county prior to the exemption taking place,” Dolezal said.
The new version also adds language that says the facilities will provide inpatient hospital services, participate in both Medicaid and Medicare and will accept both Medicaid and Medicare patients and provide health care services to indigent patients.”
Many of the state’s largest hospital firms have opposed changes to the certificate of need program, which governs the construction and expansion of health care facilities and regulates the kind of services they can offer. Several spoke out against the bill during Tuesday’s hearing. However, a spokesperson for Piedmont healthcare voiced support for the bill, saying the amendments made it a better bill, and adding that while they strongly support the CON process it can sometimes be burdensome, and this bill would allow them to service a community more expeditiously.
Several members expressed concerns that the legislation does not allow adjoining counties to express their opposition to a new facility, it only allows the county that will be bringing in the new facility to voice its support.
“We need to do something,” said Dolezal. “Ten hospitals in Georgia have closed. This is an attempt to solve a problem and bring healthcare access to rural Georgia.”
