Betting on Reno (Editor’s Note: This is the eighth in a series of articles on the Athens uninsured initiative, produced by graduate students in the Health and Medical Journalism Program at the University of Georgia.) Last fall, members of the Athens Health Network invited the founders of an unusual alternative to conventional health insurance to…
Primary care doctors could earn as much as 30 percent more in a medical quality incentive plan that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia will launch July 1. The president of Blue Cross of Georgia, Morgan Kendrick, said the incentive pay program will begin in Athens, Rome, Columbus and Savannah, with more than 250…
The old paper charts are vanishing from medical offices at a rapid rate, being replaced by digitalized records. And Atlanta and Georgia health information technology companies are taking advantage of this transition. Carrollton-based Greenway Medical Technologies, for example, has recently completed an expansion that added 300 jobs, fueled by the growth of its electronic medical records…
A Civil War surgeon’s instruments. A 16th-century volume on human anatomy. Notes of famed Georgia physician Crawford W. Long. An exhibit of such historic medical books and artifacts has opened at Emory University. “Medical Treasures,” on display through October, features materials from the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, including 18th- and 19th-century works on human…
This story is also appearing in GHN’s partner Kaiser Health News In the small Georgia town of Demorest, Habersham Medical Center, like many rural hospitals, has seen its patient base change in a way that hurts its bottom line. As unemployment in the northeast Georgia mountains remains stubbornly high, more of the hospital’s patients have…
A sudden ache or illness is troubling at the best of times. And if you can’t get in to see your primary care provider — or don’t have one — the situation can be worse still. At such times, many people turn to the emergency department (ED) at the nearest hospital. Often known as the…
The original bill was less than one page – three short paragraphs. It addressed a fairly routine matter of school superintendents serving on county public health boards, and passed the House unanimously. But this week, Georgia House Bill 538 was transformed into a vehicle for supporters of the Albany hospital merger to seek to blunt…
Health literacy is becoming a Georgia priority — though there’s still plenty of room for improvement. The state’s schools of medicine, nursing, public health, dentistry, pharmacy and education, as well as community organizations, are all working on improving people’s ability to understand health information so they can make good decisions about their medical care. An…
The federal budget cuts known as sequestration may deal a major blow to medical research, both in Georgia and nationally. The National Institutes of Health stands to lose about $1.6 billion in funding over the next 10 years, with an estimated $250 million of that reduction absorbed by the National Cancer Institute. And that could…
Proposed changes to Georgia’s health care regulatory process hit a dead end in a House committee Wednesday, but only after a four-hour hearing that exposed a longstanding divide between physicians and hospitals. The House Health and Human Services Committee debated one bill that would exempt multi-service outpatient surgery centers owned by physicians from the state…