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CON debate heats up in Georgia's General Assembly, media coverage

Ambulatory Surgery Reimbursement Update, March 6, 2007

The debate over whether Georgia's Certificate of Need (CON) is necessary continued over the past few weeks, both in the state government and in coverage from local media.

The law helps dictate where new medical facilities, including ambulatory surgery centers, are built.

There are currently several bills before the state's General Assembly that would either slightly modify or radically change the CON law.

A Justice Department antitrust expert and a member of the American Medical Association both presented arguments February 23 against the CON law to a special meeting of the Joint Senate and House Health and Human Services Committees on CON, according to a story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

To read The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's coverage of their presentations, click here.

The newspaper ran an opinion column written by a representative of its editorial board cautioning politicians against repealing or significantly altering the law because of the potential financial dangers that hospitals could face.

To read this opinion column, click here.

The Savannah Morning News ran its own opinion column written by Ramon V. Meguiar, MD, the senior vice president and chief medical officer at Memorial Health. His column also defended the need for the law.

To read Meguiar's column, click here.

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