This Walmart in the western Atlanta suburbs looks at first glance like the retail giant’s other Supercenters. But the right edge of the long building in the town of Dallas has an appendage with a separate entrance, almost like a separate store. In a way, that’s what it is. Since September, the Paulding County Supercenter…
Telemedicine offers tremendous breakthroughs in access to medical care. A patient with a chronic health problem in rural Georgia can be seen by a medical specialist hundreds of miles away. The American Medical Association says 15 percent of physicians work in practices that use telemedicine to treat patients at a distant site. This remote-site care…
By Geoff Duncan It’s Christmas morning, and sadly the Atlanta patient is bedridden, unable to spend the most important holiday of the year with family because she has come down with a bad case of the flu. Certainly, there isn’t a doctor’s office nor urgent care clinic open on Christmas. But due to advances in…
This is the first in an occasional series on rural health care in Georgia. These articles are supported by a grant from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Dr. Michael Early practices family medicine in Fort Valley. It’s in Peach County, in the farm belt of Central Georgia, and he notes that it’s “a medically…
Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD. Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News. In 2005, the EPA considered banning ethylene oxide in new sterilizing facilities because of the cancer risk it posed to residents who lived around the plants. “We also considered prohibiting the use of ethylene oxide for…
When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, Emory physician Dr. Carla Haack had no way of knowing whether her parents were alive or dead. Their home was in Cidra, a town in the central part of the island, where phone service was knocked out and roads were blocked by fallen trees and other…
Former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams told reporters Wednesday that Georgia’s proposed health care waivers are “shortsighted’’ and will leave hundreds of thousands without health insurance. During last year’s gubernatorial campaign, Abrams pushed for the state to adopt full expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. She was narrowly defeated by Brian Kemp, who…
Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan told journalists Tuesday that he wants to see transparency on quality of medical care as much as on medical prices. Duncan said there’s a vacuum of information on medical outcomes that he would like to see filled. The lieutenant governor had been in the nation’s capital Monday, attending the ceremony at…
“Final Notice,” the medical bill read. And that cheery tone continued: “The above account may be sent to a collection agency if we do not receive immediate payment.’’ The amount due: $26.04. At least they sent me an envelope with it (though they didn’t include a stamp). It was the first of two such threatening…
Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield has agreed to allow its Pathway health plan members to visit WellStar Health System doctors at network rates through the end of the year. The consent order, announced Wednesday, partially ends the long-running dispute over the health insurance exchange plan run by Anthem. The agreement over physician network care,…