Senator Paul Bailey said Cookeville Regional championed the repeal of an old law, which will benefit rural hospitals statewide.
The regulation, passed in the 1970s, required Tennessee hospitals to hire anesthesiologists, radiologists, pathologists, and emergency room doctors through an outside company. Bailey said this year, legislators passed a partial repeal that allows counties that have a population of 105,000 or less to hire medical professionals directly.
“I’m very happy that we had the support of Cookeville Regional Medical Center,” Bailey said. “Dr. Johnson, the CMO there, as well as Buffy Key, they did a great job in testifying before the Senate as well as the House, and the need for the repeal.”
Bailey said that for the past five years, it was tough to get the repeal across the finish line. Bailey said this repeal is a win for the Upper Cumberland.
“For example, Cookeville Regional Medical Center can now employ their own emergency doctors, their own pathologists, radiologists, and anesthesiologists,” Bailey said. “It’s a huge win for our rural hospitals, and especially it’s gonna be a huge win for Cookeville Regional Medical Center.”
Bailey said CRMC ran into an issue several years ago, when the company that was providing emergency room doctors gave a notice that they were going bankrupt and would be leaving within the next 30 days. Bailey said the incident put CRMC into a panic, forcing them to hire another company so emergency services would not be disrupted. Bailey said he questions why it took this long for this law to be repealed.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know why it’s taken a Republican legislature and a republican governor these many years to basically repeal this antiquated law that’s basically forcing these hospitals to have to hire a company or a corporation to provide those four medical professions,” Bailey said.
Bailey said hospitals can already directly hire other medical professionals.
