Local & State Headlines

House panel objects to board vote on Certificate of Need

Dave Williams

ATLANTA - A proposed change in state health regulations pitting general surgeons against hospitals has touched off a power struggle between lawmakers and the board that oversees health policy.

The Board of Community Health is due to vote on Thursday on a proposal to declare general surgery a single specialty in Georgia. That would make it easier for general surgeons to own and operate outpatient centers by exempting them from a law requiring state approval of new health care facilities or services.

But at a called meeting on Tuesday, the House Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to oppose the board{openbracket}s authority to make such a decision.

“This isn’t a vote for or against general surgery as a single specialty,” said Rep. Ed Rynders, R-Leesburg, the committee’s vice chairman, who ran the meeting in the absence of Chairman Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta.

“I think it’s time the legislature acts and doesn’t leave it in the hands of state agencies. We’re elected. They’re not.”

Both the General Assembly and the Department of Community Health have wrestled all year over whether and how to change Georgia’s 28-year-old Certificate of Need law, which requires applicants interested in building new health facilities or providing new services to demonstrate a need for them in their communities.

Lawmakers considered the proposal to declare general surgery a single specialty last winter, as a stand-alone bill and as part of a broader overhaul of the CON law championed by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Hospital administrators strongly opposed the exemption for general surgeons, arguing that a proliferation of outpatient centers would siphon off paying patients and leave hospitals with a higher concentration of the poor and uninsured.

After none of the measures passed, the Board of Community Health declared its intention to make the change administratively, despite warnings from the attorney general’s office that the agency lacked the legal authority to bypass the legislature.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, DCH officials vowed to push forward with Thursday’s vote.

“The Georgia Department of Community Health stands by the authority given by law to the Board of Community Health to pass rules,” the statement read.

“Under this authority, the board can move forward with the CON items on the agenda for Thursday’s meeting.”

Kevin Bloye, spokesman for the Georgia Hospital Association, said that although lawmakers can’t prevent Thursday’s board vote, the strong message the House committee sent was important.

“We still think (the board) is going to move forward,” he said. “But it puts the legislature on record.”

If the board approves the exemption for general surgeons, a court challenge is expected.

More Headlines>>