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Tag: healthcare access

  • Grady plans $1B South Fulton campus, announces CEO transition

    Grady plans $1B South Fulton campus, announces CEO transition

    Grady plans $1B South Fulton campus, announces CEO transition

    Grady Health System, a major healthcare provider in the Metro Atlanta area, announced a substantial change in leadership last week and plans for a new medical center campus.

    The new campus will be in South Fulton County and will open in phases starting with a medical office building and followed by an acute care hospital, according to the news release.

    “At Grady, world-class care extends far beyond our hospital walls,” said John Haupert, President and CEO at Grady, in the news release. “For generations, we have been a cornerstone of Atlanta’s health care system by strengthening the region’s infrastructure, advancing economic stability, and empowering communities to not just survive, but thrive.”

    The medical office building will offer imaging services, a surgery center, pharmacy services, rehabilitation, and other services. The acute care hospital will have 200 beds, and the hospital is hoped to serve as a Level 3 verified trauma center.

    The medical office building is scheduled to open in early 2028 while the acute care hospital is planned to open in 2031. There is a freestanding emergency department currently being built at the site. It will open in June 2026 and will be incorporated into the new hospital. The project is expected to cost more than $1 billion.

    “We are proud of this latest partnership with Grady,” said Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts in the release. “South Fulton County is both a rapidly growing community and a recognized health care desert. For the people of South Fulton, improved access to health care is not a luxury, it is a necessity. No longer will families be forced to travel long distances or lose critical time seeking emergency or basic medical services. Closing this gap will save lives.”

    In addition, the health system announced that current President and CEO John Haupert will be retiring, and Grady’s current COO Anthony Saul will be taking over on Jan. 1, 2027.

    “As Grady prepares for the future, Anthony is the right leader at the right time,” said Larry Gellerstedt, chair of the Board of Directors of Grady Memorial Hospital Corporation, in the news release. “He understands the complexity of our mission, the importance of operational excellence, and the responsibility we have to the communities we serve.”

  • CDC layoffs still rippling through Atlanta a year later

    CDC layoffs still rippling through Atlanta a year later

    CDC layoffs still rippling through Atlanta a year later

    It has been over a year since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention experienced its first blow of mass layoffs, and Atlanta is still feeling the effects. 

    The Atlanta-based public health agency has suffered roughly 3,000 employees from layoffs and early retirements since President Donald Trump took office, according to WABE.

    Sarah Boim, who lost her job at the CDC, told WABE that the impact of these mass firings will be substantial for years to come.

    “In terms of health, it will cause generational harm, which always makes me tear up,” Boim said. “The harm that’s going to come to people that don’t even know what CDC was protecting them from.”

    The surrounding businesses have also been impacted by the decrease in workers going to the CDC each day. Sri Thai restaurant is located across the street from the CDC campus in DeKalb County.

    Nathan Chanthavong told WABE that the restaurant has seen less business since the layoffs and the government shutdown.

    “Typically, we would get a catering order for the CDC. We saw it less, less and less. It’s not a really big impact, but catering is a big order, it is a lot of money,” he said, “so it does affect us.”

    Former CDC workers gather outside of the main entrance every Tuesday since the firings began to protest the administration’s actions.

    “It’s been heartbreaking to see so many talented, able colleagues be forced out or leave,” Ben McKenzie told WABE.

    For six months, the CDC has been without a permanent director with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya serving as the acting director while also serving as the director of the National Institutes of Health.

  • Georgia House passes bill expanding medical cannabis program, adding conditions

    Georgia House passes bill expanding medical cannabis program, adding conditions

    Georgia House passes bill expanding medical cannabis program, adding conditions

    A bill passed the state House Thursday that will change laws around the state’s medical cannabis program.

    Senate Bill 220, or the Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act, passed 138 to 21 and is headed back to the state Senate for a vote on the changes.

    The law would rename the program from “low-THC oil” to “medical cannabis,” allow an inhalation option to the medication, prohibit public use and change restrictions around dosing from percent of THC to milligrams, according to GPB News.

    “This isn’t about legalizing recreational marijuana, even though the federal government has now moved it from a Schedule I to a Schedule III at the bottom of the hill,” said state Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell. “This is about helping people, and I hear questions when people talk about adding these illnesses onto this list… When people are hurting, they need relief.”

    The bill also adds new medical conditions to the list, such as lupus and severe insomnia. The program was created in 2015 when the state first passed the legislation.

    Although the bill received positive feedback from most lawmakers, a Republican lawmaker said she was threatened regarding the bill.

    “Earlier this week, I received an email threatening me that if I voted yes on this bill, I would be dinged on a legislative scorecard,” said state Rep. Beth Camp, R-Concord. “As I read that email, frankly, it made me quite mad, and a performance appraisal from a lobbying organization that did not elect me, attempting to tell me how to legislate, is not how I operate. My constituents sent me here to critically think, to evaluate the facts, and make the best decisions possible for the people I represent.”

  • More than 7,000 Georgians wait years for Medicaid disability waivers, families plead

    More than 7,000 Georgians wait years for Medicaid disability waivers, families plead

    More than 7,000 Georgians wait years for Medicaid disability waivers, families plead

    More than 7,000 Georgians are on the waitlist for Medicaid-funded New Options Waiver (NOW) and Comprehensive Supports Waiver Program (COMP), which provide funds to help those living with disabilities.

    The funds help cover services, such as nutrition services, the cost of therapy and employment support.

    Earlice Acey told GPB News that a COMP waiver could allow her 23-year-old daughter Trinity to live a full life.

    “Her having a COMP waiver would allow her to go to school, to be able to have transportation,” she said. “She deserves to have these opportunities.”

    Acey said they have been on the waitlist for 11 years. The waivers are administered through the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and increasing funding for the program has not been a priority.

    Funds were included in the 2025 fiscal year budget to make permanent 500 waiver slots, and the current 2027 state budget includes funding for 150 new NOW/COMP slots and 100 annual waiver slots.

    D’Arcy Robb, the executive director of the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities, told GPB that people living with disabilities and seniors are in urgent need of these services. Around 1,200 Georgians are in urgent need of this care.

    “It is very common for us to hear from parents that they’ve had to leave their jobs, and it put the family in economic peril,” Robb said. “We have Georgians who are dropped off in emergency rooms. We have Georgians who are homeless.”

  • Wellroot expands mental health services for Georgia foster youth

    Wellroot expands mental health services for Georgia foster youth

    Wellroot expands mental health services for Georgia foster youth

    Wellroot Family Services has expanded its behavioral healthcare services to provide mental health support for more children and families in Georgia.

    The nonprofit provides foster care, family resiliency counseling, transitional and independent living for young adults, family housing and kinship care.

    “We know that when a child is in a trauma-informed environment, and believes that they’re safe, believes that there’s someone listening to them, believes there’s something they can talk to — It’s basically a vaccine for future trauma,” Christina Lennon, chief strategy and innovation officer at Wellroot Family Services, told Georgia Public Broadcasting.

    Wellroot Family Services is now a Core 2 Medicaid provider, which allows them to provide critical mental health support to clients.

    The nonprofit recently opened a new property in DeKalb County to help foster kids transition to adult life by giving them resources and a place to live.

    Allison Ashe is the president and CEO of Wellroot. She told 11Alive that it’s up to the community to support these young people with the Division of Family and Children Services facing an $85 million deficit.

    “Young people who have experienced the foster care system are much more likely to experience homelessness, they’re much more likely to experience incarceration or teen pregnancy,” Ashe said. “If the state doesn’t provide the resources for those types of programs, then young people sort of fall off a cliff once they turn 18 years old.”

    The new housing opened in the Oakhurst neighborhood, and the program helps young people learn how to live independently.

    “They’re taught life skills on everything from budgeting and finance to how to do their laundry to how to cook,” Ashe said. “They’re supported in finishing high school, getting into college, and they’re also provided critical mental health and counseling.”

  • Georgia Senate sets aside $409M for new state mental hospital

    Georgia Senate sets aside $409M for new state mental hospital

    Georgia Senate sets aside $409M for new state mental hospital

    The Georgia Senate allocated $409 million in its amended budget to build a state mental health hospital, which would be the first since the 1960s.

    State Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, said in a budget hearing Feb. 18 that the state’s police chiefs and sheriffs feel like their jails have become the mental health institutions for the state.

    “The Senate does not want to wait,” he said. “We’re asking you to invest almost half a billion dollars, $409 million, to support those sheriffs, to support those police chiefs and to get this problem resolved.”

    The 300-bed facility is tentatively planned to be built around Atlanta or Augusta and could take one to two years to build if approved, according to Georgia Public Broadcasting.

    Tillery explained the reason the state has not been able to take such measures in the past citing a 2010 settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over the state’s historic treatment of mentally ill people.

    In January, the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities announced a joint filing to be released from all behavioral health provisions of the settlement, which will allow the building of the hospital.

    “We’ve worked really hard to provide those services and communities,” Sen. Blake Tillery said on Friday while presenting the proposal to the public. “We’ve done a pretty good job. But there are some people who we still need to have in the state’s mental health hospitals.”

  • Georgia bill expands pharmacists’ role in prescribing HIV prevention drugs

    Georgia bill expands pharmacists’ role in prescribing HIV prevention drugs

    Georgia bill expands pharmacists’ role in prescribing HIV prevention drugs

    Pharmacists are getting more power this legislative session as lawmakers look for ways to make medications more accessible.

    A bipartisan bill would allow pharmacists to order and dispense or inject preventative HIV drugs, such as PrEP or PEP. Senate Bill 195 passed the Georgia House by a wide margin last week, according to The Capitol Beat.

    Only seven Republicans opposed the legislation.

    State Rep. Karla Drenner, D-Avondale Estates, said that patients would no longer need a primary care provider to get a prescription.

    “Communities with provider shortages, and in urban communities where appointment demands exceed capacity, pharmacies are often the most accessible health care point in both places: open longer hours, close to where people live and already trusted,” she said.

    Georgians are diagnosed with HIV at twice the national rate, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health research and policy institute.

    The legislation would allow pharmacists to administer 30- to 90-day supplies of preexposure drugs and a 30-day supply of postexposure drugs.

    Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, introduced the bill and told The Capitol Beat that the medicine helps prevent the need for very costly medical care.

    “I’m in healthcare, I do anesthesia, and I look at the data, and the data says this is far, far more cost effective to prevent it then to treat it, as many things are in medicine,” he said. “This medicine, at about $26, is far cheaper than the cost of treating somebody with an HIV infection, which would be about $420,000 to $1 million — and obviously an improved quality of life.”

  • Georgia Senate adds gender-affirming care limits to health bill

    Georgia Senate adds gender-affirming care limits to health bill

    Georgia Senate adds gender-affirming care limits to health bill

    A bill to increase access to home healthcare services has been transformed to restrict gender-affirming care for transgender Georgians.

    Republicans in the Georgia Senate added two last-minute amendments before passing the bill on party lines on Tuesday, according to WABE.

    The first amendment to House Bill 54 would prohibit doctors from prescribing puberty blockers to children diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

    State Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, an internal medicine and geriatrics doctor, introduced the amendment and said it would not impact adults.

    However, the second amendment, introduced by state Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, would prevent Georgia’s state health insurance from covering gender-affirming care for state employees and their dependents as well as preventing state hospitals from providing the care.

    Senate Democrats voiced their disapproval of the last-minute changes and criticized Republicans from straying from bipartisan, affordability policies.

    “Culture war bills are the easy things to do, to pick on vulnerable populations and try to distract your voters and the voters of Georgia from the failure of the Republican agenda in this country and in this state to deliver a good quality of life for Georgians,” said state Sen. Elena Parent, D-Atlanta.

    A similar bill to the second amendment, Senate Bill 39, failed to make it to a vote in the House last year.

    “They couldn’t get their divisive agenda across the finish line last year, so they doubled down on treating children and trans adults as less than,” Bentley Hudgins, the Georgia state director of the Human Rights Campaign, told The Georgia Recorder. “Bullies don’t belong in government.”

  • Georgia hospitals plan for $218.8M in new rural health funds

    Georgia hospitals plan for $218.8M in new rural health funds

    Georgia hospitals plan for $218.8M in new rural health funds

    Healthcare professionals recently gathered at the Capitol to discuss how to use $218.8 million awarded to the state.

    Gov. Brian Kemp announced at the end of 2025 that Georgia had been awarded funds through the federal government’s Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP).

    Now, hospitals will be able to apply for grant funds through the Georgia Department of Community Health to comply with the department’s vision for health care in Georgia, which is called Georgia’s Rural Enhancement and Transformation of Health (GREAT Health).

    Van Loskoski, CEO of Stephens County Hospital, told Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) that hospitals need funds for basic tasks.

    “We just, in the last two weeks, have had two events where we’ve had the shelter staff in place for an extended period of time with snowy and icy weather,” he said. “There’s funding built into this package that helps hospitals in emergency situations to shelter in place and to beef up their infrastructure so that they’re better prepared for these types of events.” 

    Hospital advocates listed several concerns that they would like to see the funds and lawmakers address, including an increasingly older population that relies heavily on Medicare, delays in getting payments from insurers, streamlining electronic medical records and improved technology to collect data on patient spending and needs, according to GPB.

    Critics of RHTP say the program fails to make up for the loss in federal funding to programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, and the funds may not get to the hospitals that need it the most.

    Caylee Noggle, president and CEO of the Georgia Hospital Association, told GPB she is confident the program will help target root challenges rural hospitals face.

    “We’re very, very appreciative and grateful for the increased focus on rural health care and some of the challenges,” she said. “And we’re hopeful that there are some real pieces in here that can prove to lead to longer-term innovation and support.” 

  • Georgia launches mental health parity dashboard, fines insurers nearly $25M

    Georgia launches mental health parity dashboard, fines insurers nearly $25M

    Georgia launches mental health parity dashboard, fines insurers nearly $25M

    Georgia’s Mental Health Parity Act was passed in 2022 and requires Georgia health insurers to cover mental health and substance-use conditions at the same rate as physical health conditions.

    However, compliance has been difficult.

    Now, a new centralized dashboard is set to launch that will track issues with insurance coverage for mental health care claims, according to WABE.

    John King, Georgia’s Insurance and Safety Fire Commissioner, announced Jan. 12 that he would fine health insurance companies nearly $25 million for violating Georgia’s Mental Health Parity laws.

    “I said it before and I’ll say it again: insurance companies will not take advantage of consumers under my watch,” King said in a statement. “These companies are not above the law, and I am taking definitive action to hold them accountable for denying Georgians the care they need.”

    The website will be monitored by the nonprofit Georgians for a Health Future to help track violations, according to WABE.

    The commissioner’s office is conducting in-depth examinations of 22 health insurers that was triggered by an initial report in 2023. Initial examinations found more than 6,000 parity violations.

    “I want insurers to know that I am serious about the health and wellbeing of all Georgia consumers. I will not hesitate to take action against any company that continues to violate the law – no exceptions,” King said.

    Consumer insurance complaints can be filed at oci.georgia.gov.