TITLE 31 HEALTH

Section 22. Clinical Laboratories, 31-22-1 through 31-22-13.

ARTICLE 3 OFFENSES

31-22-9. Applicability of chapter.

1. This chapter shall not apply to clinical laboratories which are:
   1. Operated by the Georgia Health Sciences University, the Emory University School of Medicine, any other medical schools in Georgia, or the United States government;
   2. Operated and maintained exclusively for research and teaching purposes, involving no patient or public health services;
   3. Operated and maintained as part of a hospital regulated and licensed by the department at any period of time during which the department, as part of its licensure and regulation of such hospital, imposes upon the medical laboratory involved the same standards of administration, performance, and operation as are imposed by this chapter upon medical laboratories covered in this chapter. In such cases and under such conditions, licensure of the hospital involved constitutes licensure of the hospital laboratory; or
   4. Operated by duly licensed physicians exclusively in connection with the diagnosis and treatment of their own patients.
2. This chapter shall not apply to pharmacists licensed pursuant to Chapter 4 of Title 26, who shall be considered practicing within their scope of practice, when they are performing tests and interpreting the results as a means to screen for or monitor disease risk factors or drug use and facilitate patient education, so long as such tests are available to and for use by the public without licensure of the user of such tests. Pharmacists performing such tests shall make reasonable efforts to report the results obtained from such tests to the patient's physician of choice.

(Ga. L. 1970, p. 531, § 1; Ga. L. 1972, p. 1247, § 1; Ga. L. 1972, p. 1257, § 1; Ga. L. 1975, p. 737, § 1; Ga. L. 1976, p. 1362, § 1; Ga. L. 1985, p. 149, § 31; Ga. L. 2000, p. 226, § 1; Ga. L. 2011, p. 752, § 31/HB 142; Ga. L. 2018, p. 355, § 1/SB 422.)

The 2011 amendment, effective May 13, 2011, part of an Act to revise, modernize, and correct the Code, substituted "Georgia Health Sciences University" for "Medical College of Georgia" in paragraph (a)(1).

The 2018 amendment, effective July 1, 2018, substituted the present provisions of subsection (b) for the former provisions, which read: "This chapter shall not apply to pharmacists licensed pursuant to Chapter 4 of Title 26 practicing in accordance with the provisions thereof who are performing capillary blood tests and interpreting the results as a means to screen for or monitor disease risk factors and facilitate patient education as authorized in Code Section 26-4-4, so long as such capillary blood tests are available to and for use by the public without licensure of the user of the test."