DAHLONEGA – A tax credit designed to help rural hospitals may be bypassing some of the very facilities that need the aid, said a north Georgia lawmaker. 

State Sen. Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, told lawmakers this week that the General Assembly should revisit the decision to omit small for-profit hospitals from the state’s rural hospital tax credit program.

There are nine for-profit hospitals in Georgia that are in counties with less than 50,000 people, which is the population cut-off for the program. One of them, Chestatee Regional Hospital, is in Gooch’s district. 

That hospital, he said, has struggled just as much as the state’s nonprofit facilities.

“I just feel like if we’re going to really do something for rural health care, we really can’t let the IRS designation stand in the way,” Gooch said at a recent meeting of the Senate Rural Georgia Study Committee.

“If we’re going to try to help communities in rural Georgia, we’ve got to figure out a way around that for-profit versus not-for-profit status,” he added.

Sen. Dean Burke, R-Bainbridge, who sits on the study committee and who sponsored a bill this year that expanded the program, saidhe did not include for-profit hospitals because he did not think there would be support for including them. 

The Georgia Hospital Association, for one, didn’t take a position when asked this week. 

“As we gauge the success of the first year of the Rural Hospital Tax Credit program, we may seek additional improvements to the law that would help more of our hospital members,” Ethan James, GHA executive vice president of external affairs, said in a statement.

Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, which represents dozens of rural hospitals, said there have been concerns in the past about for-profit entities benefiting from the taxpayer-funded program. Only a handful, he said, would also likely apply. 

There are currently 49 hospitals in the program, which was seen as a lifeline for struggling hospitals. But it has been off to a slow start even with the Burke’s bill, which raised the tax credit from 70 percent to 90 percent. 

Stephens County Hospital in Toccoa, for example, was designated as the third neediest hospital participating in the program. It has raised about $188,000 so far from 31 donors, with two of them returning to give more after the new law took effect. 

“We are very thankful for that program, and I believe, as people become acquainted with it, it will grow for us,” Lynne Anderson, the hospital’s CEO, told lawmakers this week. 

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.