Health care workers’ letter to governor urges mandatory masks

Hundreds of Georgia health care workers are urging Gov. Brian Kemp to require people to wear face masks in public. Those workers are signing a letter, to be sent Thursday morning, that also calls on Kemp to shut bars and nightclubs and prohibit gatherings of more than 25 people, including at houses of worship. The…

Piedmont agrees to pay $16 million to settle billing lawsuit by feds

Atlanta-based Piedmont Healthcare has agreed to pay $16 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act by improperly billing Medicare and Medicaid. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday that Piedmont billed the government insurance programs for procedures at the more expensive inpatient rates instead of the less costly outpatient or observation rates. “Billing…

Jail, nursing home cases help drive COVID-19 spike in LaGrange

The latest Georgia hot spot for coronavirus is LaGrange, a city near the Alabama border that has seen major outbreaks in a jail and a nursing home, and significant community spread. Testing last week at the Troup County Jail in LaGrange found 71 inmates out of 316 with positive test results for COVID-18. At LaGrange…

Doctor groups urge hike in state tobacco tax; panel OKs legislation on surprise medical billing

Four physician groups strongly endorsed a state tobacco tax increase Sunday, a day before a possible vote on the issue in a state Senate committee. “Georgia having the third-lowest tobacco tax in the country has long been unacceptable to Georgia’s medical community,” Dr. Jacqueline Fincher, a Thomson physician and a leader of the American College…

How medical personnel avoid taking coronavirus home

By Andi Clements and Andy Miller  Dr. Robert Price’s routine of going to work and coming home used to be drama-free and pretty ordinary. Price, an emergency physician at Piedmont Athens Regional Medical Center, would leave through the front door of his house, and he would return hours later to be greeted by hugs from…

Financial pain from COVID hits state health agencies, hospitals

Besides its deepening medical toll, COVID-19 is taking sizable chunks out of the budgets of hospital systems and government health programs in Georgia. Hospitals have lost surgical, diagnostic and outpatient revenue during the pandemic, and industry leaders say recent federal grant funding has not been enough to offset those losses. Emory Healthcare on Thursday became the…

A new era? Pandemic boosts telemedicine

Editor’s Note: Chances are that if you have needed routine medical care during the pandemic, you received it in front of a computer screen. But telemedicine couldn’t help what ailed me recently. After having my temperature taken outside the office, I arrived in a near-empty waiting room. Soon a physician examined the insides of my…

A strange, difficult time to study medicine

By Andi Clements  Ally Freeman, who’s pursuing her doctorate in physical therapy at Georgia Southern University in Savannah, used to spend about nine hours a week getting hands-on experience in a classroom or a lab. That was before the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disrupted daily life around the globe as governments and private businesses try…

10% of COVID-19 cases in Georgia are among health care workers

Ten percent of the people known to have been infected with COVID-19 in Georgia are health care workers, state figures show. The Public Health data, as of midday Thursday, show that of the 2,600 infected health care personnel in the state, 81 percent are female. Half are African-American. Workplace exposure to COVID-19 patients is a…

Fauci hails promising COVID-19 drug tested at Emory hospitals

Preliminary data show patients with advanced COVID-19 who received the antiviral drug remdesivir recovered faster than similar patients who received a placebo, federal health officials said Wednesday. “The data shows that remdesivir has a clear-cut, significant, positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease,…