Joined by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson, who have bickered publicly since the Legislature failed to pass tax cuts on the session’s final day, Perdue signed into law three bills dealing with education, transportation and health care.
The health care bill, Senate Bill 433, “will ease current restrictions imposed by Georgia’s Certificates of Need program, increase access to quality health care and increase competition in the health care marketplace,” Perdue said in a statement.
Perdue has 40 days from the session’s end last Friday to sign or veto bills passed by the Legislature.
The news from the capital delighted Albany Surgeon Dr. Chris Smith, whose firm, Albany Surgical PC, under the legislation will be able to perform general surgical procedures outside of a hospital, he said.
As of “3:10 today,” Smith said, “we now have the same rights as all other specialists and we now legally able to open our center.”
The center’s two operating rooms have sat unused since a 1991 ruling by the Department of Community Health, which said general surgery was a multispecialty instead of a general specialty, preventing the procedures from being performed outside a hospital, he said.
Though it had statewide impact, the ’91 ruling actually targeted Albany Surgical — it was proposed by the wife of a former lobbyist for Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Tommy Chambless, who served on the state’s health planning agency at that time, Smith said.
“It’s taken 17 years to get that rule reversed,” Smith said.
While the reform bill, which goes into effect July 1, lifts the restrictions on general surgeons, it comes with a price — the centers must provide indigent care equal to 2 percent of their gross revenues if they accept Medicaid, or 4 percent if they don’t.
“We don’t have any problem with indigent care,” Smith said. “We take care of who we’re asked to see — we always have.”
The bill opens the door for Albany Surgical to provide procedures such as colonoscopies and upper endoscopies, for patients with acid reflux disease, outside of a hospital setting, he said.
“They are tremendously cheaper if you do them in an ambulatory surgery center,” Smith said. “In general, we’re talking about 40 percent of the charges.”
The legislation also negates a December suit filed by Phoebe and the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals against Albany Surgical and the Department of Community Health.
Filed in Dougherty Superior Court, the suit alleged DCH overstepped its authority in deciding, without legislative backing, that general surgery was a single specialty.
The new law also may impact Albany’s privately owned hospital, Palmyra Medical Centers, which blocked repeatedly through Certificate of Need challenges in its efforts to provide obstetrical care and heart catheterization services to patients.
The legislation, while it doesn’t abolish CON, lifts restrictions on providers who seek to provide certain types of care in competitive markets.
Hospitals continue to be bound by contracts with insurance companies, such as Blue Cross-Blue Shield, insurer for large Albany industries such as Procter & Gamble, and whose network provider is Phoebe.
Palmyra must thoroughly evaluate the new situation before it makes any decision to expand its service offerings, Marketing Director Eric Riggle said.
“Insurance issues will be a factor that’s being considered in the big picture,” he said.