State lawmakers’ move to inject $26 million into the Medicaid budget for doctor pay raises would help strengthen Georgia’s medical safety net, physicians say. The House recently voted for the pay hike in the fiscal 2017 state budget. If the Senate and Gov. Nathan Deal agree with the House action, the rates that Medicaid pays…
Pauline Shaw has her share of worries, but she also has hope. The worries are about her daughter Dakota’s future. Shaw, who lives in Rincon in east Georgia, says Dakota suffered a stroke while still in her womb. The child, now 12, has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and autism, and is blind in one eye. Under current…
Gabi Gearhart had a good teacher in her first year in the program, her mother says. But the girl’s second year in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support (GNETS) was anything but good, Michelle Gearhart says. That second year, Gearhart says, her daughter was in an abusive situation in a Baldwin County facility….
Exposure to secondhand smoke is associated with a larger waist and poorer cognition in children, an Augusta University study has found. Researchers looked at passive smoke exposure in 220 overweight or obese boys and girls, ages 7 to 11, at schools in the Augusta area. They found that smoke exposure was associated with nearly all measures…
The number of uninsured Georgia children fell by more than 50,000 in 2014, the first year of full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, a new report found. That drop of 53,000 was the fourth-biggest decline in the United States. Yet it left Georgia still having 210,000 kids without coverage, the fourth-largest total in the nation,…
For the second time in two weeks, a health committee of the Georgia House tabled a bill Tuesday that would allow dental hygienists to practice in safety-net settings without a dentist present. But a hearing on House Bill 684 showed there was new dialogue between Rep. Sharon Cooper, chair of the House Health and Human…
Georgia received three F’s and one C in the latest American Lung Association assessment of states’ tobacco control efforts, released this week. The 2016 Georgia grades, the same as last year, reflect inadequate funding for anti-smoking initiatives, the report says. Most other states also received an “F” on three measures: spending on tobacco prevention and…
A health insurer’s data breach has affected 148,334 Georgians on Medicaid or PeachCare for Kids, state officials say. That total includes current and former Medicaid and PeachCare members from 2009 to 2015. The breach occurred when health insurer Centene lost computer hard drives containing about 950,000 individuals’ personal data, including name, address, date of birth,…
A state report on Georgia child deaths in 2014 points to a persistent problem: More than 30 percent of the fatalities reviewed were sleep-related. The report found that 503 children died in circumstances that sparked a review, and that three in four of the deaths could have been prevented. Among these reviewed deaths, 158 were…
The chairman of a Georgia House committee blasted the Georgia Dental Association on Tuesday for what she called the group’s unwillingness to discuss a bill to let dental hygienists practice in safety-net settings without a dentist present. “I’ve never seen such hostility’’ toward a piece of legislation, said Rep. Sharon Cooper, a Marietta Republican who…