The 59-member Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals said in their lawsuit against the Georgia Department of Community Health that a new rule exempting out-patient centers set up by general surgeons from being regulated "flies in the face of sound health planning policy."
"As the Department of Community Health and its Board members know full well, the new general surgery rule flies in the face of multiple court decisions and is a naked and illegal attempt to override the will of the General Assembly of Georgia, " said Monty Veazey, president of the Georgia Alliance of Community Hospitals. "DCH has been publicly and repeatedly advised by its own legal counsel - the State Attorney General - that it lacks the authority to make this rule change."
The State Board of Community Health approved the rule on December 13, reclassifying general surgeons from their multi-specialty" status to a "single-specialty" category. The rule,which becomes effective in January, will leave hospitals burdened with uninsured patients, according to the group.
General surgeons have argued that the centers would increase access to medical treatment available only through hospitals, similar to the way plastic surgeons and orthopedists provide services using out-patient clinics.
Dr. Price Corr of Albany Surgical is quoted by Access North News as saying that Georgia is the only state not to classify general surgery as a specialty, resulting in Georgia losing general surgeons and trauma care in the state to suffer.
