Health care is a collaborative effort: Medical professionals and their patients must work together to achieve good outcomes. But there are outside factors that can frustrate these efforts. One such factor is a lack of decent housing for many patients. There are a surprising number of Georgians who leave their doctors’ appointments — or check out…
By Kathryn Lawler, Tom Andrews and Shannon Sale A patient at an Atlanta clinic regularly attended doctor’s appointments to monitor his diabetes, but he didn’t see any improvement. In fact, sometimes his A1c score was higher than on his previous visit. Given the way health care problems are often addressed, a provider would almost immediately begin to look…
The term “340B” sounds like a savings plan offered to an investor. In reality, it’s a health care program that does have a savings element to it – for both hospitals and patients. 340B is a drug pricing program that lets health systems save millions of dollars on drug costs, increasing access to prescription medicines…
By Jonathon Green, CEO, Taylor Healthcare Group, with Michael Azzolin, CEO, PharmD on Demand Rural hospitals across Georgia operate on razor-thin margins, providing a necessary service to communities in need. Due to financial issues, several rural Georgia hospitals have closed over the past decade, forcing those in need of care to travel greater distances for health care….
In September, when Shelly Azzopardi went to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital with abdominal pain, she didn’t worry about her insurance. Doctors said she had a case of appendicitis. But she also tested positive at the hospital in Marietta, Georgia, for Covid-19. Physicians decided not to do surgery and treated her with antibiotics and painkillers. Azzopardi, 47,…
Dr. Jonathan Lewin is stepping down as Emory Healthcare CEO and chairman after six years — a period that saw strong growth in the Atlanta-based system. Lewin, who is also executive vice president for health affairs of Emory University and executive director of the Woodruff Health Sciences Center, will remain in all the positions until a…
About 20 percent of Georgia hospitals got an “A’’ group in the Leapfrog Group’s autumn patient safety ratings, released Wednesday. That’s a lower percentage than in the spring, when 31.6 percent earned the top grade. The safety grades come out twice a year. They are meant to provide safety information to consumers so they can…
Medicare is reducing payments to nearly half of the nation’s hospitals for excessive patient readmissions, including 81 in Georgia, Kaiser Health News reported Thursday. The total penalized in Georgia represent 55 percent of the state’s hospitals, higher than the national average of 47 percent. But if you remove facilities that are exempt from penalties from…
Many patients dealing with mental health crises are having to wait several days in an ER until a bed becomes available at one of Georgia’s five state psychiatric hospitals, as public facilities nationwide feel the pinch of the pandemic.“We’re in crisis mode,’’ said Dr. John Sy, an emergency medicine physician in Savannah. “Two weeks ago,…
By Bram Sable-Smith and Andy Miller The San Leandro Hospital emergency department, where nurse Mawata Kamara works, went into lockdown recently when a visitor, agitated about being barred from seeing a patient due to covid-19 restrictions, threatened to bring a gun to the California facility. It wasn’t the first time the department faced a gun…