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Certificate of Need Protects Healthcare Services for South Carolinians. PDF Print E-mail

flag_photo.jpgSouth Carolina is one of 35 states that rely on a Certifi cate of Need program to help assure that everyone regardless of ability to pay or where they live receives needed medical care. CON also helps safeguard patient safety and control costs by regulating capital investments in health care and assuring that the applying provider can provide safe and quality health care. CON decisions are made based on what services the citizens of the area need. Without CON, healthcare entrepreneurs could offer any type of service to those willing and able to pay. Taking paying patients from the hospital would seriously endanger the hospital’s ability to care for those who cannot pay. Rural hospitals are the most vulnerable to this type of competition because they have fewer insured patients to help absorb the costs of caring for the uninsured. Some rural hospitals might even close if CON were eliminated.

While there are many things about the CON law and process that do not work as well as they should, it would be a disaster to eliminate the CON process and allow anyone to build and open any type of health care service they choose. Instead, the CON law needs to be streamlined and simplifi ed to limit the costs of applying for CONs and fairly apply the law to all providers. CON decisions should always be based on the best interest of the public, not politics.

South Carolina's Certificate of Need Program (pdf)
 

Certificate of Need Talking Points

Please contact your legislators and tell them that South Carolina must retain but strengthen its Certifi cate of Need Law to help control health care costs, guard the quality of care, and assure all citizens get the care they need. Be sure that they understand that…

  • CON protects the public from entrepreneurs who would offer profitable health care services to well-insured consumers, with little regard for how uninsured patients will receive needed services.

  • CON helps to keep the costs of services down by preventing unnecessary duplication of expensive services.

  • CON helps assure that facilities will be proficient at performing the procedures they wish to provide.

  • CON is not perfect. It needs to be reformed to streamline the process and close loopholes that allow some providers to avoid regulation.