House passes bill to loosen rules on new health care facilities

HB 1339 would ease regulations on opening hospitals in rural areas.

Hospitals in rural areas are one step closer to opening or expanding with fewer rules under a bill the Georgia House passed Tuesday.

House Bill 1339 would ease regulations that govern the construction and expansion of hospitals in counties with fewer than 50,000 people. The measure passed 166-1, with Democratic support, despite failing to provide for an expansion of Medicaid, the government health care program for people with low incomes or those who are disabled.

Instead, the bill includes a “Comprehensive Health Coverage” study commission that would review access to health care for low-income and uninsured people.

“Given the rapid evolution of health care in this country, it is totally appropriate that we investigate the structure and regime to provide Georgia cutting-edge health care that is both accessible and affordable,” said state Rep. Butch Parrish, a Republican from Swainsboro who sponsored the bill.

The bill would take a more limited approach to scaling back the regulatory system known as certificate of need, or CON, compared with a full repeal of CON regulations sought in the Georgia Senate.

“This is not the end-all of this,” Parrish said. “This is the beginning of the journey.”

To open a new hospital in Georgia under current law, hospitals must demonstrate a significant need for care following a federal mandate established in 1974 requiring state regulation of new medical facilities. The rules were created to help control the costs of government reimbursements for Medicaid and Medicare.

The federal government dissolved its mandate in 1986, and states have since repealed, amended or continued some form of CON.

Many of the provisions in the bill, Parrish said, resulted from a bipartisan House study committee on CON modernization that met last summer.

The bill would address psychiatric and mental health care needs by allowing hospitals to expand the number of beds available for people with serious mental health and substance use disorders. It also looks to improve maternal mortality rates by encouraging more obstetric facilities to open.

The legislation would also shorten the timeline for review of hospitals’ applications, strengthen penalties for failing to produce required hospital reports and boost the rural hospital tax credit program, which gives taxpayers a credit toward their state tax bill if they donate to qualifying medical facilities.

Some House members said they had been waiting years for the state to address CON rules. Parrish said his incremental approach was intentional.

ARVIN TEMKAR/ARVIN.TEMKAR@AJC.COM Republican state Reps. Butch Parrish (left) and Trey Kelley shake hands Tuesday after Parrish’s HB 1339, which would ease regulations on hospital expansion in rural counties, won approval in the House.