The Georgia Council on Substance Abuse congratulates Senator Kay Kirkpatrick on the unanimous and bi-partisan vote by the Georgia House of Representatives on SB 4 – The Patient Brokering Bill.
Now that SB 4 has passed the General Assembly with bi-partisan support and unanimous support in both the Senate and the House, the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse encourages Governor Kemp to sign SB 4 into law with every urgency.
The acts of patient brokering and excessive drug-testing simultaneously degrade a system that is already under stress. Most people who suffer from substance use disorders do not get the treatment they need. Opioid use disorders are still taking the lives of an average of 4 people a day in our state. This is not a theoretical exercise. This is a reality which must be addressed or Georgians and their families will be victimized and, in some cases, die.
This is serious business.
Patient brokering is already happening across the country and is being addressed as close to home as Florida and Tennessee. Florida enacted an anti-kickback law in 2016 and since then, similar laws have been enacted in Arizona, California, New York, Tennessee and Utah. When these criminals are driven out of Tennessee and Florida, our state becomes at-risk by virtue of an easy drive up and down I-75.
A law such as SB 4 is needed because there is a risk that individuals with addiction will be thought of and treated as a commodity and the real potential for abuse by brokering is there.
