O.C.G.A.
O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 31-7-3 (2019)

Requirements for permits to operate institutions

✓ O.C.G.A. (archive.org 2024 item): print volumes of 2004-2024, per-volume vintage; older volumes partly replaced by 2019 Release 73 text; no 2025 or 2026 Acts
Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.
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(a) Any person or persons responsible for the operation of any institution, or who may hereafter propose to establish and operate an institution and to provide specified clinical services, shall submit an application to the department for a permit to operate the institution and provide such services, such application to be made on forms prescribed by the department. No institution shall be operated in this state without such a permit, which shall be displayed in a conspicuous place on the premises. No clinical services shall be provided by an institution except as approved by the department in accordance with the rules and regulations established pursuant to Code Section

Annotations

Cross references. - Certificate of need required for offering health care and exemptions, § 31-6-40 et seq.

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

Permit requirement as prerequisite to recovery for services rendered. - Permit requirement is clearly a regulatory measure as to health, not a fund-raising or tax measure or mere business permit. Under these circumstances, in order to recover for services rendered, it must be shown that a hospital is properly licensed, or is a holder of the proper permit at the time services are rendered. Proctor v. Lanier Collection Agency & Serv., Inc., 147 Ga. App. 104, 248 S.E.2d 179 (1978), overruled on other grounds, Merrill Lynch v. Zimmerman, 248 Ga. 580, 285 S.E.2d 181 (1981).

Cited in Culverhouse v. Atlanta Ass'n for Convalescent Aged Persons, 127 Ga. App. 574, 194 S.E.2d 299 (1972); Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, 93 S. Ct. 739, 35 L. Ed. 2d 201 (1973); Reddix v. Chatham County Hosp. Auth., 134 Ga. App. 860, 216 S.E.2d 680 (1975); Todd v. Physicians & Surgeons Community Hosp., 165 Ga. App. 656, 302 S.E.2d 378 (1983); Piedmont Healthcare, Inc. v. Ga. Dep't of Human Res., 282 Ga. App. 302, 638 S.E.2d 447 (2006).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d. - 40A Am. Jur. 2d, Hospitals and Asylums, §§ 5, 6.

C.J.S. - 41 C.J.S., Hospitals, §§ 1 et seq., 9 et seq.

ALR. - Validity and construction of statute requiring establishment of "need" as precondition to operation of hospital or other facilities for the care of sick people, 61 A.L.R.3d 278.

Notes of Decisions
Cited in 4 cases, 1983–2020 · leading case: Georgia Hosp. Ass'n v. Ledbetter, 396 S.E.2d 488 (Ga. 1990).
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Georgia Hosp. Ass'n v. Ledbetter, 396 S.E.2d 488 (Ga. 1990). · cites it 12× “To obtain an operating permit, hospitals may either submit to an inspection by the Department of Human Resources (DHR) or (under OCGA § 31-7-3 (b)) provide DHR with a report by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), a nonprofit Illinois…”
Piedmont Healthcare, Inc. v. Georgia Dep't of Human Resources, 638 S.E.2d 447 (Ga. Ct. App. 2006). · cites it 2× “Subsection (a) of the rule states that “Multi-building hospitals may request a single permit to include all buildings provided that the hospital buildings are in close proximity to each other, the facilities serve patients in the same geographical area, and the facilities are…”
Todd v. Physicians & Surgeons Cmty. Hosp., Inc., 302 S.E.2d 378 (Ga. Ct. App. 1983). · cites it 2× “920, effective July 1,1981) (now OCGA § 31-7-3, effective November 1, 1982).”
Cobb Hosp., Inc. v. Emory-Adventist, Inc., 851 S.E.2d 208 (Ga. Ct. App. 2020). · cites it 4× “Such term includes public, private, psychiatric, rehabilitative, geriatric, osteopathic, and other specialty hospitals.”
Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.