A safe prediction about 2013 is that the health care delivery system will see multiple changes, in Georgia and elsewhere. Hospitals partnering with other hospitals, and buying physician practices. Employers and insurers trying new techniques to contain costs. And everybody looking ahead to the full implementation of health reform in 2014. New models of primary care are already taking…
Athens illustrates the old rule that a community with an abundance of poor people is likely to have a shortage of doctors to care for them. As one of the poorest counties in the nation, Clarke County doesn’t have nearly enough primary care doctors to go around. But this same area, containing one of the…
Drs. Jaquelin and Edward Gotlieb, a husband-and-wife pediatric team, have practiced in the Stone Mountain area for 36 years. Over that time, the two pediatricians have seen their percentage of Medicaid patients rise — while the income from their practice drops. The government Medicaid program in Georgia pays much less than Medicare, which itself pays…
Reimbursing underpaid doctors more for treating Medicaid patients, with the additional money coming from the federal government instead of state coffers, might appear to be an easy thing for a health agency board to approve. But the idea was not greeted enthusiastically by the state Department of Community Health board. There were expressions of dissatisfaction…
The fight over Georgia’s decision whether to expand Medicaid has heated up. Those in favor of expansion point to the hundreds of thousands of Georgians who will be covered if the state decides to increase its Medicaid rolls, as outlined under the Affordable Care Act. But Gov. Nathan Deal, citing the cost to the state…
Joey Krakowiak has always known he wanted to be a doctor. Now, after four months as a medical student at the Georgia Health Sciences University-University of Georgia Medical Partnership in Athens, he is learning the basic science and clinical skills he has been curious about from an early age. While a childhood interest in the…
J.R. Green will be 65 next June, and he drives a van for the Athens Council on Aging. Like many other military veterans in the Athens area, he gets some of his medical care at the VA satellite clinic on U.S. Highway 29 and the rest 100 miles away in Augusta. At a large VA…
Many future doctors enter medical school with the dream of one day treating diseases, but Theodora “Teddie” Brandon sees medicine differently. “I think it’s important to prevent disease and not just treat it. Some of the biggest advances in improving health in the last century have been in public health – with vaccines, sanitation ….
A legal fight about a Georgia health insurance law pits doctors against insurers in a case that could have reverberations nationwide. At issue is a 2011 state law that requires insurers to pay doctors promptly for treating patients in self-funded employer health plans. The new Georgia law states that physicians treating such patients must be…
“Defensive medicine’’ has long been considered one of the drivers of high health care costs. The term refers to doctors making some medical decisions primarily to safeguard themselves against possible malpractice liability. Thus a test might be done that has little benefit to the patient, because the doctor fears being sued for not taking every…