Metropolitan Atlanta Hospital Accountability Project

From the Atlanta Business Journal:

Gov. Sonny Perdue signed legislation Tuesday aimed at raising money for trauma care in Georgia while reducing the number of crash victims who end up in hospital emergency rooms.

The bill, part of the governor’s legislative agenda this year, will slap “super speeders” with an additional $200 fine for driving more than 85 miles an hour on major highways and 75 mph or faster on a two-lane road. The measure also will increase driver’s license reinstatement fees for motorists with multiple license suspensions. Read the rest of this entry →

HAP News: We’ve compiled a list of area clinics, though it is still somewhat incomplete. We would appreciate any insight or information you may have on accessing a more complete list. We’ll then provide that information on the site for everyone’s use, especially that of all consumers. Thanks in advance for your help!

In an article published April 19, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Andy Miller examined the growing trend of hospitals to use credit reports to gauge which self-pay patients can afford their hospital visits, and which cannot.

From the article:

• Equifax executive Arvind Krishnaswami claims hospitals collect an average of 10 cents on a dollar, writing the rest of the amount off as bad debt;
• Because of that, Krishnaswami formed Roswell, GA-based Medlytix in 2006;
• These services are used to identify patients who qualify for charity or free care, those eligible for discounts and those who should pay the whole bill;
• But many criticize the use of credit scores to analyze patients’ finances at hospitals, who have a “reputation as aggressive bill collectors while their tax-exempt status gets heightened scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators.”

Read the article here.

While this didn’t happen in the metro Atlanta area, it is still something to note. The Chicago Tribune reported today that “a higher percentage of the poor and uninsured — one in three — are being redirected from the University of Chicago Medical Center to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center than the typical rate of admission of such patients to hospitals in Illinois. Read the rest of this entry →

here’s a growing class of Americans known as the “underinsured.” These are people who have health insurance, but whose medical bills make up more than 10 percent of their annual income.

Host Jacki Lyden gets the latest estimate from health economist Cathy Schoen, a senior vice president of the Commonwealth Fund. Listen to the NPR Web cast here.

Some people can’t buy health insurance because they have a pre-existing medical condition. But for most of the nation’s 47 million uninsured, cost is the big obstacle — especially if they don’t work for a company that pays part of the premium. Hear the broadcast here.

And even if they could find an affordable health plan, many are not used to building that cost into their monthly budget. Potential sticker shock is emerging as a key issue in the nation’s debate over whether everybody should be covered. Read the rest of this entry →

As President Obama and the U.S. Congress continue health care reform discussions, a new survey, The Public and the Health Care Delivery System, by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health highlights the public’s attitudes and experiences with the American health care delivery system. Read the rest of this entry →

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Ask most Americans how much it costs to visit a doctor and they probably do not know. Ask doctors what their fees are and they’re not likely to know that either. Read the rest of this entry →

On Thursday, April 23, the AJC opened its editorial page to two experts on the topic of public health insurance and current state of health care. One expert is Art Kellerman, who holds an impressive resume as a professor of emergency medicine, an associate dean of health policy at Emory University, a head of  Grady Memorial Hospital’s emergency room and a former co-chair of the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance.

In his editorial, he uses an anecdote to describe a situation in which a woman had stopped taking her blood pressure medicine days before suffering a severe hemorage that killed her. Despite being employed, she was uninsured, and could no longer afford the life-saving medicine.  To Kellerman, “this story illustrates what is wrong with America’s health care system. My patient got excellent, high-tech care, but too late to do any good. Ironically, my team’s futile effort to save her life cost far more money than the medicine she needed to stay healthy. …One reason America scores so poorly is that we ration health care, based largely on ability to pay. Uninsured Americans get about half the care of insured Americans, so they tend to be sicker and to die sooner.” Read the rest of this entry →

Georgia Congressman John Barrow (D-Savannah) addressed his peers on the House floor April 01, voicing his opinions on the subject of the uninsured. He also hailed the extension of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and pledged to work with both parties and the president for solutions to the health care crisis.