Georgia Council on Substance Abuse
Congratulates Georgia State Senate on Unanimous Bi-Partisan Passage of SB 4 – The Patient Brokering Bill
Senator Kay Kirkpatrick: Fighting to Protect Peers in Recovery
The Georgia Council on Substance Abuse congratulates the Georgia State Senate on their unanimous bi-partisan vote in support of SB 4 – the Patient Brokering Bill – by Senator Kay Kirkpatrick.
The Georgia Council on Substance Abuse and the over 800,000 people in recovery across Georgia ask the Georgia House of Representatives to move with alacrity on moving SB 4 to a vote should COVID-19 cause a disruption in the Session.
SB 4 (with a different bill number passed the Senate last Session with unanimous bi-partisan support) but, due to COVID-19 did not make through the House. The Georgia Recovery Community respects this reality, we do ask, given the fact that this life saving legislation was delayed last year, that the House make every effort to pass it this year – Georgia families need this important protection.
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.
