TITLE 31 HEALTH

Section 1. General Provisions; Access to Eye Care, 31-1-1 through 31-1-23.

ARTICLE 1 GENERAL PROVISIONS

31-1-3.1. Reporting disabled newborn persons; referral to treatment and rehabilitative services.

1. It is the intent of the General Assembly to ensure the registration by the department of disabled newborn persons in order that all such persons might obtain referral and other services provided by existing state agencies, departments, other organizations, and individuals.
2. As used in this Code section, the term "disabled newborn person" means a person less than 12 months old who is deaf, blind, or has a serious congenital defect as defined by the department.
3. Except as otherwise provided, every public and private health and social agency and every physician authorized to practice medicine in this state shall report to the department the name of any person such agency or physician has identified as being a disabled newborn person. The report shall be made within 48 hours after identification of that person and shall contain the name, age, address, type and extent of disability, social security number, if any, and such other information concerning that person as the department may require.
4. The department shall establish procedures whereby a disabled newborn person for whom a report is made under this Code section shall be referred with informed consent to appropriate public or private departments or agencies for treatment and rehabilitative services.
5. The department shall:
   1. Maintain records of reports, notifications, and referrals made under this article; and
   2. Maintain and update rosters of public and private departments or agencies which provide services to persons who have disabilities like those of disabled newborn persons and send copies of such rosters and an annual update thereof to each county board of health for those boards of health to make such rosters available to the public.
6. Statistical information collected under this Code section shall be available to any other federal or state agency or private organization concerned with disabilities of newborn persons, but no names or addresses will be provided without the consent of the immediate family or guardian of the disabled newborn person.
7. Any person or entity with whom the department enters into a contract after June 30, 1987, for services shall, as a condition of that contract, register with the department (formerly the Division of Public Health of the Department of Community Health) the various services that person or entity is capable of or is already providing to disabled newborn persons and persons having disabilities like those of disabled newborn persons for purposes of the roster of services the department maintains under paragraph (2) of subsection (e) of this Code section.
8. A person or entity which in good faith makes a report required by subsection (c) of this Code section shall be immune from civil and criminal liability therefor.

(Code 1981, §31-1-3.1, enacted by Ga. L. 1987, p. 393, § 1; Ga. L. 1989, p. 14, § 31; Ga. L. 1995, p. 1302, §§ 13, 14; Ga. L. 1997, p. 1585, § 2; Ga. L. 2011, p. 705, § 5-9/HB 214.)

The 2011 amendment, effective July 1, 2011, deleted "Division of Public Health of the" preceding "department" in the introductory paragraph of subsection (e); in subsection (g), inserted "department (formerly the" and inserted "of the Department of Community Health)" near the middle, and substituted "department" for "division" near the end.