Erlanger hospital executives have begun “preliminary discussions” with Georgia officials to seek state dollars in payment for providing the highest level of trauma care to Georgians.
Peach State patients make up about 30 percent of the Chattanooga hospital’s most severely injured patients each year.
“We will be continuing to try to seek support from the Georgia Legislature for trauma,” said Doug Fisher, vice president for government relations at Erlanger. He said the hospital treated more than 6,000 Georgia trauma patients last year.
Georgia legislators were unable in the just ended session to agree on a permanent funding source for its own struggling trauma care network of 14 hospitals. But they did for the first time allocate money — a one-time sum of almost $60 million — to the newly formed Georgia Trauma Care Network Commission.
Erlanger most likely won’t see any of that $60 million, and Mr. Fisher said that is to be expected.
“One would understand the need to take care of Georgia hospitals first,” he said.
All 14 Georgia trauma centers will get a piece of the funding, but it won’t be until May when it’s decided how the money will be distributed, said Dennis Ashley, chairman of the trauma care commission that is charged with devising funding formulas.
The distribution formula for the one-time funding, which must be decided by June 30, won’t necessarily be how money is allotted in the future, said Dr. Ashley. He has said he’d be open to talking to Erlanger about receiving Georgia money once more funding is available.
“We’re making it clear we’re not setting precedent for the next year and when and if there’s sustainable funding,” he said. “Whatever we do this year, we want to spend more time looking at the issue, and it may need to be modified.”
That’s why Erlanger needs to begin discussions now, Mr. Fisher said, so it can be considered in receiving money when Georgia legislators do designate a funding source.
“In reality, it’s things like this that take a lot of time,” he said. “I’m not at all discouraged.”
He said it took Tennessee legislators years to decide to use tobacco tax funds to bolster financial support for trauma care centers in Tennessee. Erlanger expects to receive within the next month its first piece of $7 million raised for trauma centers across Tennessee.
A Level I trauma center maintains a full range of trauma care around the clock, seven days a week, including certain specialists at least on-call at all times. These centers also have research and residency program requirements, and meeting those is very expensive, officials note.
But Georgia lawmakers noted the state has one of the worst death rates in the nation due to traumatic injury, usually due to vehicle accidents.
Legislators had planned a funding mechanism for trauma care, but it fell victim to an impasse on tax cut negotiations between the House and Senate.
The Senate proposed adding a $10 fee to annual vehicle registrations in the state that would have provided the hospitals about $70 million a year, but House members said they wouldn’t agree to that unless the Legislature eliminated the car tag tax.
Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson, who sponsored the fee in the Senate, said negotiators reached an agreement in the closing days of session to dedicate the state portion of property tax, or about $90 million a year, to trauma care. He said House leaders wouldn’t allow their negotiators to sign off on the compromise.
“Trauma care died on the table,” he said.
Dr. Ashley he was “very disappointed” no funding source was established this year, but he added the nearly $60 million approved in the midyear budget was “a huge step.” He estimates the network will need $80 to $100 million each year to grow and improve trauma care in Georgia.
“This will help keep trauma centers from jumping out,” he said. “It will stop the hemorrhage, but it will not take us forward.”
