ATLANTA — Starting Wednesday, Georgia’s efforts to expand access to healthcare in rural parts of the state will see a renewed push.
The development comes as House Bill 1339, which modified what’s known as a certificate of need process, takes effect after passing in the Georgia legislature.
A Certificate of Need is the set of requirements a hospital must meet in order to be approved for major capital expenditures and other facility projects.
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In Georgia, the state CON requirements are used by the Department of Community Health to determine if funding is allowed to go through to build or expand hospitals and hospital access in different communities.
HB 1339 was a step to address that process in order to make it easier for rural parts of the state, with low populations and resources, to get more equitable access to healthcare.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones had pushed for reform on the state’s certificate of need rules, especially when it comes to loosening what the restrictions were, in order to get development started.
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As previously reported by the Associated Press, the Lt. Governor was at times out of step with the State House.
Still, in September, the Georgia Senate passed the bill, and it passed the House nearly unanimously months earlier.
So, now that HB 1339 is law and set to take effect, what will it actually do?
The bill required that the Georgia General Assembly created and funded the Comprehensive Health Coverage Commission, with the intention of reviewing opportunities to reimburse and/or fund Georgia healthcare providers for premium assistance programs, improve healthcare for Georgia’s low-income and uninsured populations, enhance the delivery and coordination of healthcare across state agencies and provide a report on these topics to the Georgia General Assembly by the end of 2024.
That process started in June, with the possibility of expanding Medicaid in the state, a long-time goal of Georgia Democrats, and a hard line to cross for the state’s Republicans. Gov. Brian Kemp maintains that the state will not expand Medicaid fully.
Instead, Georgia has been test-piloting its Pathways to Coverage program, which is a version of Medicaid with work requirements. Once the program started, Georgia became the first state in the union to have one of its type.
HB 1339 also requires Georgia’s Department of Community Health to “review and update the state health plan at least every five years beginning no later than January 1, 2025, to ensure the plan meets the evolving needs of the state.”
Georgia’s State Office of Rural Health said there were only 28 small rural prospective payment system hospitals, and 85 rural health clinics in the state, as of fiscal year 2020. Since 2010, 10 hospitals in Georgia have closed, including the Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center in 2022. In 2021, KFF Health News reported Georgia had the third most closures in the U.S., behind just Texas and Tennessee.
A potential outcome of the commission’s work could be a faster process to get clinics and hospitals operational in rural Georgia communities, where healthcare access is at times a dire need.
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