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Chambless refutes allegations

• Former state Rep. Tommy Chambless clarifies his role nearly two decades ago in developing Georgia's Certificate of Need law.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Created in 1989, Georgia House Bill 508 was intended to bring the services physicians were starting to offer outside the hospital setting under Certificate of Need requirements, said the bill’s author, former state Rep. Tommy Chambless of Albany.

Chambless, a Democratic state representative from 1981-97, disputed the notion that the bill, or an amendment to it he authored in 1991, ever were intended to put ambulatory surgical centers, such as the one Albany Surgical PC wanted to open, out of business.

The surgery center celebrated the gubernatorial signing Wednesday of a new state law, Senate Bill 433, that loosened many Georgia Certificate of Need regulations, including the classification of general surgery as a multi-specialty, which prevented surgeons from opening general surgery practices without a needs assessment and approval from the Department of Community Health.

In an interview Wednesday, Dr. Chris Smith, a surgeon with Albany Surgical, said the ’91 amendment was aimed at keeping his practice group from opening a general surgery center. Chambless, however, said Thursday that no particular business was a target of the amendment he wrote.

House Bill 508 had “increased the umbrella of those people who were going to be subject to Certificate of Need review,” Chambless said, requiring those physicians who were beginning to provide services such as lithotripsy, which uses sound waves to break up kidney stones, outside of hospitals, to also demonstrate a need for the services.

The bill exempted specialists of many types from CON requirements, enabling them to open specialty medical practices, he said.

An exception was general surgery, which the state health planning agency determined not to be a single specialty under the amendment.

In the late 1980s, Georgia’s Certificate of Need process was overseen by the State Health Planning Agency, an independent agency funded by the Department of Human Resources. In the late 1990s, Gov. Roy Barnes merged health planning and some other health services into the Department of Community Health.

Chambless’ former wife, Valerie Hepburn, was assistant to the commissioner of the Department of Human Resources in 1991 when the amendment was interpreted, though she was never involved in health planning, Chambless said. Smith had said Wednesday that Chambless’ wife was involved in formulating the rules that prevented his surgical practice from opening a surgical clinic. Chambless and Hepburn were already divorced before DHR interpreted the amendment.

Defeated by Republican Doug Everett for the House seat in 1997, Chambless didn’t abandon health policy concerns. That same year, Chambless said, he became a lobbyist for the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals. While Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital is a member of the alliance, he has never lobbied specifically for Phoebe, he said, refuting a charge made Wednesday by Smith. Chambless also said he has served as a member of the board of directors of Phoebe Putney Health System, parent company of the hospital, for “eight or nine years.”

Phoebe is a lead plaintiff in a suit filed last December against the Department of Community Health and Albany Surgical on behalf of the dozens of members of hospital alliance, according to Dougherty County Superior Court records.

The suit contends that a December 2007 ruling by DCH that general surgery was a single specialty exempt from the CON process and not a multiple specialty overstepped the boundaries of the regulatory body’s power.

Senate Bill 433, which Gov. Sonny Perdue signed Wednesday, specifies that general surgery is a single specialty, in effect upholding the department’s ruling.

Attorney for the Department of Community Health, Patrick Millsaps of Camilla, said he expected the suit to be dropped before an April 24 hearing on a preliminary injunction against DCH and Albany Surgical.

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