A bill that would allow hospitals to open “micro-hospitals” in certain circumstances passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee on Thursday.
The bill touches on one of the most incendiary issues in the hospital world, “certificate of need,” or CON. The state uses CON to protect existing hospitals from having their few profitable services cherry-picked away by private businesses. If someone wants to open a new medical business, he or she can’t violate CON restrictions. If it’s a hospital, it has to receive a certificate showing the need is there for the new hospital.
House Bill 769 had its CON provision whittled down. As it's currently written, it would allow an existing hospital to buy a failing hospital or one that closed within the past year, and use it to open a "micro-hospital." The buyer hospital must be located in an adjoining county.
The micro-hospital would have to be in a county with fewer than 50,000 people. It would have between two and seven beds, and offer emergency services 24 hours a day.
Ethan James of the Georgia Hospital Association and Monty Veazey of the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals each said he supports the version of HB 769 that passed. The bill now moves to the Senate floor.
It is unclear how many businesses would be interested in opening such micro-hospitals, since the emergency room is typically one of the biggest money losers of a hospital. One facility in the district of House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, was able to entice a buyer, but that micro-facility was not expected to turn a profit.
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