LINDEN, Tenn. (WTVF) — Tennessee lawmakers are considering a move that would eliminate a decades-old regulatory process that controls where and how hospitals can open across the state.
Since 2010, more than a dozen rural hospitals in Tennessee have closed, leaving entire counties without a medical center. Now, a new bill moving through the legislature would dismantle the state's Certificate of Need process — a system that requires companies to prove a community needs a new hospital before they can build or open one.
Kyle Kopec, Chief Medical Compliance Officer for Braden Health, the company that purchased and reopened the Perry County Community Hospital late last year, said the current process creates a financial barrier that stops many companies before they even start. "To go through this application process, you have to spend several hundreds of thousands of dollars," Kopec said. "For [Haywood Regional Medical Center], we had to spend around a million dollars. You have to spend a million dollars to ask someone if you can open a hospital."
Since Braden Health reopened the Perry County facility, Kopec said the need has been undeniable. "What we've seen is a lot of patients that are extremely sick and needed medical care and just weren't getting it," Kopec said.
What the bill does
The proposed legislation would remove cardiac catheterization labs and freestanding emergency rooms from the Certificate of Need process by 2027, and acute care hospitals by 2030. Under the bill, hospitals could open where they choose — including next to existing facilities — without state oversight.
House Majority Leader Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) framed the bill as a step toward improving access and driving down costs. "This is just the next logical step to try to decrease wait times, increase competition out there," Lamberth said.
Push back
Kopec admits, Perry County Community Hospital won't likely have to worry about competition, given the community's population size, but some other hospital administrators have real concerns about what removing the CON process could mean for their medical centers.
Scott Tongate of Macon Community Hospital raised concerns about what deregulation could mean for smaller, rural facilities that depend on a broad patient base to stay financially viable. "Sumner Regional Medical Center and Hendersonville Medical Center could open up a freestanding ED right in the middle of Lafayette, siphon off probably half of our admissions," Tongate testified.
Senate Minority Leader Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) also expressed hesitation, pointing to other states that have already moved away from Certificate of Need requirements. "I think we've seen states like Texas where they have no Certificate of Need, and it's really the wild wild west of hospitals sprouting up," Akbari said.
Kopec disagrees. "In my experience, competition has never been bad for patients," Kopec said.
A model to follow?
Braden Health was able to reopen Perry County Community Hospital without going through the Certificate of Need process because the legislature had previously passed an exception for counties with no open hospitals. "We definitely could not have reopened this hospital without it," Kopec said.
Kopec said eliminating the CON process statewide could allow Braden Health and other companies to revive additional shuttered hospitals across Tennessee. "We’re one company, we can only open so many hospitals at a time, to be very blunt with you," said Kopec. "This is a huge national crisis, these rural hospital closures. Other people helping helps this issue, especially in Tennessee."
The bill was debated in a House subcommittee Wednesday, but lawmakers stopped short of voting on it because the sponsor wanted to add an amendment. It will be considered again next week.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at Chris.Davis@NewsChannel5.com.
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