Erlanger Health System filed a certificate of need (CON) application on Feb. 26 for a new, $9.2 million radiation service building in North Georgia without a vote from the full board approving the move, according to board of trustee records and the Georgia Department of Community Health.
Filing a CON application does not guarantee the project or commit funds, which would require a separate board vote, but it is the second step of the regulatory process to establish new medical services in an area. The first step is a letter of intent, which Erlanger filed with the department on Jan. 29.
Tanner Goodrich
Jack StuderThe full board met on Feb. 22 but wasn't presented the option to authorize filing a certificate of need for the new project as it did in November, when a CON was filed to build a surgery center in Ringgold. That same resolution authorizing the surgery center was included in the radiation center's application to show board authorization of the project.
Erlanger officials did not explain why this time the project did not come before the board for a vote or why a resolution for a different project was attached to the CON.
Tanner Goodrich, Erlanger's vice president of operations, wrote in an email Friday afternoon that the hospital's board "has been kept fully apprised by executive management of the radiation therapy center Certificate of Need filing in Catoosa County."
Board Chairman Jack Studer said Friday that he was aware of the plan to file a CON for the radiation center, but "it has to come to the board or the CON is invalid," emphasizing that he thought it was an honest mistake.
"It seems to me as though it's a clerical error of attaching the wrong resolution to the CON," he said. "But if someone has filed a rogue CON without proper board authorization, that's not following the process, and that's not good. But I don't think that's what happened. I hope that's not what happened."
When the resolution for the surgery center certificate of need was presented at the Nov. 30 board meeting, Goodrich voiced Erlanger's intentions to expand into North Georgia.
"As we continue to look at our footprint in the area, obviously North Georgia is a very strategic location for us," he said, adding that he expected the move to be heavily "contested."
"We don't anticipate that this is something that's going to fly right through ... we think this could take well over a year," he said.
Expanding radiation services in Georgia is on the minds of others, as well. CHI Memorial - Georgia filed a CON on Feb. 26 to revive radiation services in Ringgold in a building it bought from Hutcheson Medical Center. Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton filed a CON in May to build a $44.8 million cancer treatment facility at its main campus.
Contact staff writer Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.