Georgia Regents Medical Center in Augusta, Ga., may have been chosen by the Department of Community Health to build a new hospital in Columbia County, but two local hospitals have continued to fight the decision, according to a Columbia County News-Times report.
After being denied the required certificate of need in a joint decision by the Georgia Department of Community Health, GRMC's competing bidders — the Doctors Hospital of Augusta and University Hospital, also in Augusta — filed notices to contest the decision.
An independent hearing officer from the governor-appointed Certificate of Need Appeals Panel will hear the appeals from University and Doctors hospitals and will be assigned to the case within 30 days of the notice being filed. The officer will then have two weeks to meet with both parties to begin scheduling hearing dates over the following 60 to 120 days.
After the hearings, the officer has 30 days to render a judgment, meaning the decision may be pushed back into next summer. If the hospital dispute further, the final resolution may be pushed back as far as 2017, according to the report.
Columbia County is the largest in Georgia without an acute-care hospital or free-standing emergency center.
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