March 10, 2010 - Georgia Watch released a detailed financial analysis of Northeast Georgia Medical Center, a regional safety net hospital that serve low-income, uninsured, underinsured and other vulnerable populations in Gainesville and its surrounding region. This section of the state, serviced primarily by Northeast Georgia Medical Center, has an uninsured rate that is higher than the state average; many area health consumers face significant barriers in affording care. Read the rest of this entry »

Heather Duncan
The Macon Telegraph

The Medical Center of Central Georgia is cutting hours, clinics and pharmacy offerings at its W.T. Anderson Health Center, which provides primary and specialty care to the poor…more.

Georgia Watch released a report detailing the plight of the uninsured and underinsured when seeking affordable health care in the state. Titled The Cost of Care in Georgia, the report examines overcharging of uninsured patients at nonprofit hospitals, along with the economic repercussions of medical debt and how it directly causes foreclosure and financial ruin. In terms of potential solutions to the issue of affordability, the report evaluates programs across the state that treat the uninsured for less… Read the rest of this entry »

Health care is one market where consumers are perpetually at a disadvantage and are consistently denied the fundamental options and choices that are available in other consumer-driven industries.

While there are many different causes for this lack of consumer control, one major factor is the absence of straightforward and clear information. For health care consumers, details on the most basic information – such as pricing and financial assistance eligibility – are scarce.

The majority of hospitals in the state are tax-exempt organizations, and are obligated to their communities to provide some level of financial assistance, either through their participation in Medicaid and/or their offering of financial assistance to needy patients. The latter is generally referred to as “community benefits” and include charity and indigent care.

In return, these facilities are typically subsidized by state and local governments. For example, tax-exempt nonprofit hospitals do not pay most taxes, including sales, income and property. Because of this, tax-exempt nonprofit hospitals do not contribute to vital local infrastructure, such as road and sewer maintenance, or firefighter and police forces, even though they utilize these services.

But, some hospitals participate in practices that are questionable in regards to proper stewardship of our foregone tax dollars, such as maintaining large reserves of cash and paying its executives wages that are similar to that of Fortune 500 companies while charging self-pay/uninsured patients significantly inflated charges that often puts care out of reach.

For example, many tax-exempt nonprofit hospitals in Georgia charge uninsured patients a significantly higher cost for services than average payments received from most third party payers, such as private insurance, Medicare and Medicaid. While most hospitals offer financial assistance, some do not alert patients to the availability of this assistance. In addition, many hospitals employ aggressive collection tactics when a patient bill.

All hospitals are unique – some are leaders in community betterment while others are underperformers in regards to financial programs for indigent and nearly poor patients. As a consumer advocacy group, we feel it is our role to examine the financial practices of hospitals, especially facilities who act as a ‘safety net’ in their communities, in order to provide clear and transparent information for our state’s healthcare consumers.

Because of this, in 2007, Georgia Watch began authoring an ongoing series of reports that examine the finances and community offerings of hospitals in the state. The research and analysis is based on figures reported by the hospital to the IRS, the US Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, and other publicly available sources.

Hospitals are already examined are:

• Memorial University Medical Center (Savannah)
• Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital (Albany)
• Northside Hospital (Atlanta)
• Medical Center of Central Georgia(Macon)
• Floyd Medical Center (Rome)
• Northeast Georgia Medical Center (Gainesville)

Georgia Watch was recently awarded a two-year grant to achieve several goals in expanding access to health care for the metro area’s uninsured and underinsured patients. Called the Metropolitan Atlanta Hospital Accountability Project, we will examine the challenges low-income, uninsured and underinsured patients face in the metro Atlanta area by surveying consumers and analyzing charity care policies at area for profit and nonprofit hospitals. We will also examine current public policies in regards to financial assistance for medically uninsured and underinsured consumers.

Approximately 1,656,430 – 18 percent – of the state’s residents are currently uninsured. According to a report recently released by Harvard University, approximately half of all Americans who file for bankruptcy in the United States do so because of medical bills. Three-quarters of those patients had health insurance at the time of illness or injury. Of the 100 counties in the nation with the highest rates of bankruptcy in 2006, 45 were in Georgia.

As the state’s leading nonprofit consumer watchdog, Georgia Watch already conducts detailed financial research and analysis of statewide tax-exempt nonprofit hospitals in an ongoing series of reports. To date, we have released five reports examining three of the state’s most utilized safety net hospitals (Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta , the Medical Center of Central Georgia in Macon and Memorial University Medical Center in Savannah), the nonprofit health care system that serves most of southwest Georgia (Phoebe Putney Health System in Albany) and a nonprofit hospital ranked top in the country for its large volume of infant deliveries (Northside Hospital in Atlanta).

For the Metropolitan Atlanta Hospital Accountability Project, Georgia Watch – along with its collaborators — will create a comprehensive analysis of the subsidized care and community benefit programs of the hospitals and hospital systems in the metropolitan Atlanta area. We will also work with area consumers and hospitals to identify specific challenges in regards to financial assistance for medical care. Input from both groups is crucial to truly understanding the obstacles of health care financing for uninsured and underinsured consumers and the facilities that provide that care.

Once underinsured and uninsured consumers, their needs and the practices and needs of area hospitals are identified, Georgia Watch and project collaborators will develop and promote best practices methods, as well as make public policy recommendations.
The Hospital Accountability Project will also address the use of the Indigent Care Trust Fund (ICTF), a state-sponsored program that pays hospitals for health care for low-income people, and how effectively metro hospitals utilize its funds. To learn more about ICTF, click here.

Hospitals located in the following metropolitan area counties will be examined: Barrow, Bartow, Butts, Carroll, Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, Coweta, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Haralson, Henry, Jasper, Meriwether, Newton, Paulding, Pickens, Rockdale, Spalding and Walton.

This grant was made possible by the national health care policy group Community Catalyst, and similar projects are in 14 other states. Collaborators for the grant are the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, Concerned Black Clergy, Georgia Legal Services Program, Atlanta Legal Aid Society and WonderRoot. The grant program is an initiative of Community Catalyst’s Hospital Accountability Project, which promotes positive changes in policies and practices of individual hospitals and hospital systems, and works for reform at local and state levels.

For more information, please contact Hospital Accountability Project Manager Holly Lang at (404) 525-1085 or via email at hlang@georgiawatch.org.

To learn more about our statewide Hospital Accountability Project, click here.