The law, passed last year to make it tougher for people to live and work in the state without proper documentation, includes a provision that requires all licensed professionals to prove their citizenship.
The Medical Association of Georgia said the law has created an administrative burden for physicians, and the small staff of Georgia’s Medical Composite Board is bogged down trying to process license renewals for Georgia’s 41,000 doctors and other medical professionals because of the requirement.
WSB-TV reported that some medical professionals have had to briefly stop seeing patients because of the delays.
Doctor’s licenses must be renewed every two years. The task previously was done on a state website; doctors received immediate confirmation of their renewals after a few clicks and a payment.
Now, applicants must submit a notarized affidavit and identification proving U.S. citizenship, and the staff of the Medical Composite Board must review the information. The state said nearly a third of doctors are experiencing a delay of 10 or more days in renewing their licenses.
No one has been found who was living in the state illegally despite all the work.
“I can tell you that we have not found one yet, and so far we’ve processed about 28,000 of these,” said Bob Jeffrey, operations director for the agency. “So far, everyone is legal.”
The Medical Association of Georgia said it has been barraged with calls from doctors who are frantic about problems. The law prohibits unlicensed doctors from practicing medicine.
“We’ve received a number of complaints from our physician members discussing they’ve had a number of licensure delays,” said Donald Palmisano Jr., executive director of the association.
Palmisano said the law has affected the way some doctors practice medicine.
“It’s added another administrative burden to physicians, so it’s taken away some time from their focus on patient care, and that’s where the real concern is,” Palmisano said.
Many groups are pushing lawmakers to make adjustments during their next session.
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Since GA wants to check every person in the state to ensure citizenship, then add the proper amount of people to handle the additional work.
Is this the smaller government which was discussed by the Republicans? Deal and his legislature have no insight into the downstream problems caused by these laws.
No illegals have been caught in the licensing renewal process of doctors. I feel so much better.
This nonsense is akin to the voter ID laws where very few people in the US have been caught committing voter fraud.
The GOP failed to win the presidential election in 2008 because of a flawed candidate and his running dope. The GOP failed to win the presidential election this year because of a badly flawed candidate and his running dope. Now the GOP is attempting to walk back many of the policies which may have worked in 1980, but they don't work now. I suggest that Nathan and his gallery of idiots do the same thing. Since the loss in 2008 and the pipe dream of a win in 2012 the GOP decided to attempt to limit voters rights to increase their chances.
These voter ID laws which were being pushed by the GOP were nothing more than a poll tax or a poll literacy test. The effort of GOP to limit our right to vote was shut down in a variety of states, to that I say, "thank you". In the PA State Supreme Court, Justice Debra McCloskey-Todd asked the question, "What's the rush"? This was just ten weeks before Nov. 6th. The PA GOP lost this court case involving voter IDs for this election cycle. Thank you Justice McCloskey-Todd.
People who wait till the last couple of weeks are called SLACKERS!
Quit whining!
This legislation is good for many reasons.