The Georgia Department of Community Health has rejected Floyd Medical Center's second appeal of a decision by the department that prevents it from providing open heart surgery, the Rome News-Tribune reports.
Floyd Medical Center in Rome, Ga., has been working to secure a certificate of need to perform open heart surgery since the Georgia Department of Community Health first denied its bid two years ago. The department operates the state's certificate of need program.
The hospital has already appealed the department's decision once, which was rejected. In its second appeal, the hospital argued that Redmond Regional Medical Center in Rome, the only provider of open heart surgery in the area, provides the service for a higher cost and that the amount of charity and uncompensated care that Redmond Regional provides to Black people is disproportionate, the Rome News-Tribune reports.
But, Marsha Hopkins, the designee who affirmed the rejection on behalf of Department of Community Health Commissioner Frank Berry, wrote that the hospital "did not satisfy its burden to demonstrate there exists an atypical barrier to open heart services within its proposed service area based on cost, financial access and quality for the population it asserts experiences this barrier," according to the publication.
Thus, on June 30, the department reaffirmed its initial decision to deny Floyd Medical Center a certificate of need for open heart surgeries.
"This doesn't necessarily mean that this is the end of it. We feel strongly about the merits of our application and now we are assessing next steps and appeal right," Floyd Medical Center President Kurt Stuenkel told the Rome News-Tribune July 1.
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