The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the state's "certificate of need" law and said a surgical center could not expand without state approval when it issued an opinion Monday, according to Politically Georgia.
Hugo D. Ribot Jr., MD, and Malcolm Barfield, MD, own the Georgia Advanced Surgery Center for Women in Cartersville, Ga., and argued they did not need state approval to add a second operating room to their outpatient center. Their lawyers said the certificate of need law diminished competition among providers and drove up the cost of care, but Presiding Justice Harold D. Melton disagreed. He wrote the regulation is far from monopolizing.
The law "does not authorize monopolistic 'contracts' relating to providers of new institutional health services. It only requires that all such providers obtain a certificate of need before adding new services," Justice Melton wrote.