Latest News On Georgia

Latest California Healthline Stories

Incidental Cases and Staff Shortages Make Covid’s Next Act Tough for Hospitals

As omicron sweeps the country, many hospitals are dealing with a flood of people hospitalized with covid — including those primarily admitted for other reasons. While often milder cases, so-called incidental covid infections still drain the beleaguered health care workforce and can put them and other patients at higher risk for contracting covid.

Left Behind: Medicaid Patients Say Rides to Doctors Don’t Always Come

States are required to set up transportation to medical appointments for adults, children and people with disabilities enrolled in the Medicaid program, and contracts can be worth tens of millions of dollars for transportation companies. But patients say the companies that deliver those rides are showing up late — and sometimes not at all — leaving them in bad weather, disrupting their care and even causing injuries.

Rural Communities Left Hurting Without a Hospital, Ambulance or Doctors Nearby

Rural areas such as Echols County, Georgia, have high levels of uninsured people and profound physician shortages that compound the lack of health care options, especially in the 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid.

Understaffed State Psychiatric Facilities Leave Mental Health Patients in Limbo

The pandemic has so seriously strained already tight state psychiatric hospitals in Georgia, Virginia, Texas and elsewhere that these facilities for the poorest and most vulnerable people with mental illness struggle to admit new patients.