(The Center Square) — A Georgia Senate Study Committee started exploring what motion lawmakers must tackle reforming or repealing the state’s certificate of need program.
The committee, created with the passage of Senate Resolution 279, is conserving conferences around the state and can make suggestions for lawmakers to imagine when the legislative consultation resumes in January.
“Research has shown overwhelmingly that CON laws limit access, lower quality, and raise costs,” Chris Denson, director of coverage and analysis on the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, stated in a observation to The Center Square. “We are glad that the Georgia Senate is further examining this issue and look forward to the possibility of significant repeal in the 2024 legislative session. With ongoing concerns about hospital closures, why do we maintain a law that makes it harder —and in some cases impossible— to expand or open new healthcare facilities?
“In the previous 4 years, neighboring states in South Carolina and Florida have nearly utterly eradicated their CON systems,” Denson added. “Georgia now stands in danger of falling in the back of relating to innovation and funding in healthcare.”
Last month, South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster signed a measure to repeal the state’s certificate of need regulations for most healthcare facilities. The measure, S.164, establishes a three-year sunset of the CON requirement for hospitals except in counties that do not have one, where the mandate is repealed immediately.
Anna Adams, executive vice president, external affairs, for the Georgia Hospital Association, urged lawmakers to look at CON not as a barrier to care but as a gateway that protects Peach State patients and ensures they receive quality care.
“When we speak about certificate of need, what’s the drawback that we are looking to resolve for?” Adams asked the committee. “Is it that sufferers do not have get entry to to all services and products; is it that they do not have get entry to to sure services and products? Is it about affordability? What is the problem that we are in point of fact looking to get at?”
Adams said the association has launched a working group to offer recommendations “on the suitable time.”
“…We have problems around the state with get entry to to trauma care; now we have problems with maternal mortality. Each of the ones issues is a in point of fact huge, considerable factor that I feel all of you wish to have to handle and feature been looking to deal with,” Adams added. “And they are now not essentially related to certificate of need. So what we’d ask is that you just … take a holistic technique to having a look at healthcare, attempting to determine the place we will be able to make some changes that will likely be useful for hospitals, doctor practices, nurses, and many others.”
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