Certificate of need laws make performing surgeries in the outpatient setting more difficult, Hal Scherz, MD, wrote in a column for The Augusta Chronicle.
Four notes:
1. "The best way to drive down healthcare costs is with competition," wrote Dr. Scherz. However, 35 states and Washington, D.C., have CON laws, which call for state regulators to approve the opening of any new or expanded healthcare services.
2. The state of Georgia has had a CON law in place since 1979. In the column, Dr. Scherz urged the Georgia legislature to consider abolishing CON laws.
3. Dr. Scherz pointed to The Surgery Center of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, which offers outpatient surgical procedures between one-fifth and one-tenth the costs of identical inpatient procedures. According to Dr. Scherz, "A center such as this would not be possible in a state with CON laws, because it would never get by the hospitals."
4. Dr. Scherz is the founder of Docs 4 Patient Care, and president and managing partner of Georgia Urology in Alpharetta.