Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Health Care Provider Directory topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Sen. Hodges introduces statewide health‑care provider directory; committee raises privacy concerns for small counties
Summary
Sen. Hodges presented SB 131 to create a statewide health‑care provider directory listing provider characteristics for planning and consumer use; committee members warned that combining age, gender and specialty in small counties could identify individual providers.
Sen. Hodges, a sponsor of Senate Bill 131, told the committee the bill would establish a statewide health‑care website listing providers by age, language proficiency, gender, practice location and license type to aid planners and consumers.
The measure, Hodges said, would publish month and year of birth, city, county and ZIP code but “no personal information.” He said the intent is to help identify geographic shortages of particular types of health‑care providers so planners “don’t have health‑care deserts.”
Committee members pressed Hodges on privacy risks in sparsely populated counties. A committee member said that when a county is small, combining age, gender and specialty can effectively single out an individual provider. “Some of the information, while the center’s intent is … not to have personal information, some of the counties are small and using age and several of the classifications might actually provide for personal identifying information,” the committee member said.
Hodges responded that it is not the bill’s intent to identify individuals and that the Georgia Board of Healthcare Workforce needs uniform data from all counties to do workforce planning. He said planners require comparable information across large and small counties to spot provider shortages.
Chairman Hawkins voiced support for the bill’s consumer element, saying patients often look at a provider’s age or prefer a provider of a particular gender. “This helps the patients select the provider that they really wanted. So I think it’s a good bill,” Hawkins said.
No formal vote was recorded on SB 131 during the session. Committee members asked questions and expressed both privacy concerns and support for the planning benefits; Hodges said he would address those concerns as the bill moves forward.
The committee’s discussion occurred during its agenda hearing on multiple bills; SB 131 drew extended questioning on the balance between workforce planning data and potential identifiability in small counties.
