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DEL.ICIO.USClinic treats those who fall through health care net
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
He spent 19 months as a flight surgeon during the war in Vietnam.
Today, Bill Martin applies what he learned practicing medicine in the Southeast Asian country to the clinic he runs near First United Methodist Church of Lawrenceville.
“When you have a patient in front of you - North Vietnamese, South Vietnamese, illegal immigrant or legal immigrant - it doesn’t matter,” the doctor said. “You just take care of the patient.”
Martin founded the Hope Clinic six years ago to care for the uninsured, under-insured and indigent. Referrals take many avenues. Patients find their way to his office after treatment in emergency rooms or public health offices.
Patients suffer with diabetes, cardiac disease, high cholesterol and hypertension. Some can pay. Many can’t; they get a discount. The difference is made up by donors. Supporters, though, wonder how long the clinic can continue.
On Wednesday, The Badie Tour stopped by Hope to talk to staff and volunteers about local primary health care. It mirrors what you’d find in Anywhere U.S.A.: Insurance companies are slow to pay claims or cover only certain conditions. People are under-insured or uninsured. Hospital emergency rooms become ad hoc providers.
“There are so many problems, but lack of care of the uninsured is a big issue,” Martin, 66, told me during a quick break between seeing patients. “If patients don’t have insurance, and they are charged exorbitant costs for preventive care, they don’t see a doctor. When they start feeling bad, they are already in trouble, so they show up at the emergency room with [sky-high] blood pressure.”
He sees about 20 to 22 patients a day and could treat more if he weren’t treating people with severe issues. The clinic sees walk-ins from 7:30 to 10 a.m. on weekdays, but recently has turned new patients away because of backlogs.
Some patients followed Martin to the nonprofit after he closed his private practice. John Mitchell, who serves on the Hope board of directors, is one of them. He worries about money to run the nonprofit. The charity received nearly $70,000 in grants last year; the goal in 2008 is to raise nearly $600,000.
“The clinic has been running hand to mouth, so to speak,” he said. “Martin is a throwback to that old-school doctor. His primary concern is taking care of patients. This has always been his dream - to have clinics available. We’d like to have five across the county.”
While the health care industry needs reform, Martin said the answer isn’t solely in universal health care - at least in the forms that have been proposed.
“Everybody needs to know that if we don’t do something about the uninsured problem, it’s going to take the system down,” he said. “This type of clinic needs to be a community clinic because this is a community problem. This model, in my opinion, is a step in the right direction.”
For more information about the Hope Clinic, call 770-685-1300.
Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail: rbadie@ajc.com.
Permalink | Comments (19) | Post your comment | Categories: Rick Badie
Comments
By Michael H. Smith
February 28, 2008 11:03 AM | Link to this
Of course Doctors don’t ask question concerning legal status, Mr. Badie. They trained to treat and heal. But Doctors also bear a responsibility under the law, like when someone comes in with a bullet wound they have to report it to the police. The same should happen when it is obvious an illegal alien has come in seeking treatment, Doctors should report that to the police and every police department in this country should be participating in the 287g ICE program, which should be fully funded by congress, since congress refuses to enforce immigration law against the will of the American people.
Providing health services to illegal aliens is part of the problem that is bringing the healthcare system down and driving healthcare costs up across the nation, though many other things certainly have to be addressed in order to make healthcare affordable to U. S. Citizens and legal immigrants. Affordability is the key in achieving what is called universal healthcare, whether it is free-market based or single payer socialized medicine (which I oppose) or a hybrid that does not depend on government or business that puts/gives the individual total control of their healthcare so they can never lose it (which I favor the most).
Again Obama in another conservative position understands affordability is the key to making the healthcare system of this country work for everybody. We conservatives of the progressive Teddy Roosevelt ilk are practical conservatives, what one of his relatives termed as a practical Republican. Sadly, now all we have is compassionate neo-cons(who are not conservatives) and elitists left and right running or should I say ruining the show.
By Bruce Wilcox
February 28, 2008 12:01 PM | Link to this
Mr. Smith suggests we turn our doctors, nurses and medical providers on every level into the secert police. Doctor-Patient confidentaly should become a thing of the past, but why stop at just illegals, allow the medical field to become another first line of defense, a funny accent, longhairs, non-conforming attire, so many possiblities of early detection.
The cost of healthcare and insurance has been far higher than the rate of inflation since the early 90’s, long before the massive influx of illegals under the Bush administration. In the bigger picture of the healthcare and insurance industries ripping off the American workers and companies, it is a non issue.
These little clinics save taxpayers untold millions of dollars by providing preventive health care and keeping the uninsured out of our emegency rooms and hospitals where we all know the bills will always be in the thousands.
The Doctor Martin’s should have our support and thanks for the providing care that so many cannot afford. Maybe a few churches should get together and hold fund rasiers for these clinics, actions speak louder than words.
Now we find out two would be doctors had a clinic ripping off the poor without even being doctors, it’s not all that easy being poor or illegal.
By Michael H. Smith
February 28, 2008 12:31 PM | Link to this
Get real Mr. Wilcox; are Doctors private police because they report bullet wounds? More usual over the top comments from a supporter of amnesty for illegal aliens.
No claim was made that illegal aliens are solely responsible for the healthcare situation in this country; you’re trying to re-frame the argument I’m not going to let you get away with it. Go back read my comment again.
And it never should be easy if you are in this country illegally, in fact, it should be made functional impossible to live in this country as an illegal alien. Not to mention, we would have less poverty if the illegal aliens didn’t make their contribution to our poverty rate.
Doctors would never have a concern about payment if and it is a big IF admittedly, the affordability issue was addressed to assure funding along with other adjustments.
By LT5000
February 28, 2008 1:06 PM | Link to this
Only one way to drop the cost of health care in America. Limit awards to trial lawyers.
They are the reason that insurance premiums and the cost is so high. Combine that with the illegals and others who abuse our emergency rooms and never pay a nickel. This cost is passed on to patients with insurance who can pay.
Now, which party benefits the most from Trial Lawyers? Here’s a hint, one was campaigning for President a few months ago.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=518A8755-02E2-40D3-8708-ACDE05FAA980
LT5000
By LT5000
February 28, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this
The dirty little secret that Mr. Badie will never point out is that 85% of Americans are covered by health insurance at all times
When you factor in people who were without insurance for less than a year the number boosts up to 90%.
I guess Bruce and Mike can scream all they want about a Health Care Crisis, but their really isn’t one.
Unfortunately, you can’t count on Mr. Badie to give you the facts on this issue either. Here is the Congressional Budget Office Link.
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=4210&type=0&sequence=1
By Bruce Wilcox
February 28, 2008 1:41 PM | Link to this
A doctor reporting a bullet wound or child abuse is just common sense. A doctor giving up doctor-patient confidentalty is the beginning of that slide down the slippery slope. The chance of abuse is great, we know this as fact by the actions of this administration, civil liberities are being pushed to the max and beyond.
Many forget that illegals are under the same protections given to any United States citizen until proven guilty, the same protections we enjoy when we travel to other countries. A doctor is not trained to be a judge, heck we have enough trouble getting our own sheriff to enforce immigration laws.
Who next will join the Secert Police, telephone companies, oh wait they already have, cable companies, gas companies? I’m not ready for a Police State, never will.
Read my comment again, all I said that the amount illegals effect healthcare and insurance costs is a non-issue in the bigger picture.
You speak of poverty, but lack the knowledge of what real poverty is until you see where these illegals are escaping from.
By Dr Coles
February 28, 2008 8:45 PM | Link to this
The government caused the entire problem with health care in America by over socializing (with unfunded mandates) medicine to the extent it is not completive. The government allows a monopolistic pharmaceutical environment, and the FDA a federal agency failing American citizens and needs be eliminated or completely re-organized; it’s corrupt, and is causing a major impact on the cost of healthcare in America, and we want to exacerbate the problem? http://www.InteliOrg.com/
By Michael H. Smith
February 29, 2008 2:39 AM | Link to this
Secret police hooey, a Doctor has the same responsibility under the law to report a suspicious person or activity no different than any other U.S citizen. Law enforcement has the responsibility to investigate those reports and apprehend anyone found to have committed a crime, which should include illegal aliens of unauthorized residency.
The slippery slope is turning a blind eye to suspect illegal aliens and giving them any reasons to remain in this country. Like hopes they will slip through the justice net and be able to continue to game the system or have their papers fixed after the fact instead of being lawfully deported and/or the possibility of another amnesty.
Now what was that definition of insanity again? Doing amnesty twice and expecting different results?
The only secret is that federal law enforcement refuses to do the job of enforcing immigration laws, the courts won’t allow the states and local officials to do anything much on enforcement and congress intends to do nothing about it, all in violation of articles found in the constitution.
As a result of this do nothing about illegal immigrants, it has a negative impact on a troubled healthcare system that could really do without the expense of the illegal alien burden draining yet another limited resource.
By Bruce Wilcox
February 29, 2008 10:54 AM | Link to this
No Mr. Smith, a Doctor is far more protected from being drafted into your secert police than “any other U.S citizen”. Legal privilege involves the right to withhold EVIDENCE from DISCOVERY and/or the right to refrain from disclosing or divulging information gained within the context of a “special relationship.” Special relationships include those between doctors and patients, attorneys and clients, priests and confessors or confiders, guardians and their wards, etc.
The Oath of Hippocrates includes the promise that “Whatever, in connection with my professional service, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.”…”Those things which are sacred, are to be imparted only to sacred persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the profane until they have been initiated into the mysteries of the science.”
Don’t expect the feds to do anything for at least the next two years, due to people like you the Bush-McCain-Kennedy Bill was defeated. This showed the Congress that “The People” were happy with the law as it now stands and no changes are needed. I warned you this would happen and all we would have is at least two more years of whining.
By Michael H. Smith
February 29, 2008 11:00 AM | Link to this
I not going to waste anymore time on your BS, Mr. Wilcox. You’re wrong.
By Bruce Wilcox
February 29, 2008 11:15 AM | Link to this
It is the LAW Mr. Smith, the United States law, not Lou Dobbs law.
By Mark
February 29, 2008 11:38 AM | Link to this
Doctor-patient confidentalty should end when a bullet/stabbing wound, or an illegal is involved.
By LT5000
February 29, 2008 11:58 AM | Link to this
Bruce,
Did the doctor report it when you were assaulted in that public restroom on Ponce?
LT5000
By Michael H. Smith
February 29, 2008 12:06 PM | Link to this
Yeah, the law Mr. Wilcox, try enforcement when all else fails. Not you and Teddy Kennedy promoting living in the shadows of U.S. law, amnesty or amnesty by default. Doctors are no more protected under the law than anyone else. They are obligated to report any knowledge of a probable crime and to avoid knowingly being a participant in aiding and abetting illegal aliens. Many have admitted (actually publically reporting to the federal government) to treating illegal aliens and have confessed that in doing so their hospitals and clinics have been closed or will be if they continue draining taxpayer resources.
As I said before you’re wrong.
Oh, by the way since you bring up Lou…. when you, Cynthia Tucker and Mike King blast Lou Dobbs it is probably the best endorsements he can receive. Go Lou, you are really getting to them.
Bye for now Mr. Wilcox, but watch out for those secret police. They are everywhere riding around in those secret cars with police written all over them. They even have those secret uniforms that stand out like a strobe light in the dark.
By Bruce Wilcox
February 29, 2008 1:18 PM | Link to this
A subsequent investigation into whether Limbaugh had violated Florida’s doctor shopping laws was launched by the Palm Beach State Attorney, which raised privacy issues when investigators seized Limbaugh’s private medical records looking for evidence of crimes. On November 9, 2005, following two years of investigations, Assistant State Attorney James L. Martz requested the court to set aside Limbaugh’s doctor-patient confidentiality rights and allow the state to question his physicians, stating it was necessary because “I have no idea if Mr. Limbaugh has completed the elements of any offense yet.”[86] Limbaugh’s attorney opposed the prosecutor’s efforts to interview his doctors on the basis of patient privacy rights, and argued that the prosecutor had violated Limbaugh’s Fourth Amendment rights by illegally seizing his medical records. The ACLU issued a statement in agreement and filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Limbaugh.
On December 12, 2005, Judge David F. Crow delivered a ruling prohibiting the State of Florida from questioning Limbaugh’s physicians about “the medical condition of the patient and any information disclosed to the health care practitioner by the patient in the course of the care and treatment of the patient.”
The defense rests.
By Michael H. Smith
February 29, 2008 11:39 PM | Link to this
What in the heck was that all about?
Defense should go see a psychiatrist!
Turning over the “non-medical residency information” gathered on a suspect illegal alien to law enforcement has nothing do with care and treatment or violating doctor-patient confidentiality.
Secret police, disclosing medical records, man oh man, what next: Little green men that glow in the night?
By Bruce Wilcox
March 1, 2008 10:02 AM | Link to this
U.S. Constitution Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I also suggest you do a little research into the State of Georgia’s Law as to Doctor-Patient Cconfidentiality Rights.
As stated before, a person is awarded all the rights of a citizen until proven otherwise, a doctor is not trained to be a cop or judge.
Now I gave two legal sources plus a judges ruling on an admitted drug addict no less, I think it’s time for you to be a big boy and prove me wrong instead of holding your breath and saying “It isn’t so because I said so”. Ask yourself Mr. Smith, what would Lou do, prove his case with facts or whine like you?
By Michael H. Smith
March 1, 2008 11:44 AM | Link to this
Limbaugh’s drug addiction and illegal residency are apples and oranges and no, non-citizens do not have “all the rights of a citizen”. Go read the U.S. Constitution again. Voting and eligibility to serve as President are exclusive rights reserved only for U.S. Citizens and the Presidency requires native birth.
Further to the point, a recent case right here in Gwinnett County involving an illegal alien from Mexico with TB blows your Limbaugh drug cover of Doctor-patient privilege as having unlimited immunity from government right out-of-the saddle. Doctors have to report several things to the government that would breach Doctor-patient medical confidentiality. I cited one early on and there are others beyond the second now cited.
Now big boy give it a rest, again you are full of bull. As they say in Texas: All hat and no cattle.
Now, for the sensible rest of us that realize that our country cannot afford the luxury of treating illegal aliens who have no right or business in this country receiving anything, especially medical treatment, when our country cannot pay for this treatment of its’ very own U.S. citizens: From Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Health Care spending projected to nearly double to $4.3 trillion annually by 2017. So, if you think healthcare is being rationed unfairly in this country now to U.S. citizens what does the future hold? Likely more rationing, limiting of needed care and means testing beyond anything like the current affairs. I don’t think it is praise worthy to applaud Doctors’ charity when it is we U.S. citizens who need the charitable giving first and foremost. Charity dear Doctors should begin utmost with the lawful home folk. Let the illegal aliens return to their native homeland to receive their “free” healthcare from their government and charitable organizations. We cannot afford them.
Source taken from ABC News:
“We have an approaching crisis in this country unless we change the way we do business,” Weems said.
Within the health sector, economists project that spending on hospital care will increase at rate of 6.9 percent a year over the coming decade, spending on physician services will rise 5.9 percent annually, and spending on nursing homes will grow 5.2 percent a year.
The economists’ report will be published online by the journal Health Affairs.
On the Net:
Health Affairs:
http://www.healthaffairs.org/
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services: http://www.cms.gov
By Bruce Wilcox
March 1, 2008 1:06 PM | Link to this
You’re confused on several points as usual. First, on extending the same rights as citizens, I hope you were just being childish when you suggested they would have voting rights and could run for President. When you travel, you need to go outside the county and the country to understand the concept, which may be why you are so confused. When traveling in another country and you need medical care do you think you have to offer proof to a doctor that you are indeed a citizen of that country before he administers treatment? Of course not, if it ever happened bush would invade the country that did it.
Now on the TB patient, sorry to say your ignorant on this one as well. Remember the yuppie from Buckhead with TB who traveled against doctors orders, when he returned he was taken into custody and comfined to a hospital, this was a good old United States citizen. The concept is called ‘Protecting the Public Health’.
I see you did not check Georgia Law, didn’t think you would, it reinforced my position.
You didn’t really read Rick’s column all that well, it was about a caring doctor treating those who cannot afford it, legal or illegal. It’s these kind of doctors that save the taxpayers untold amounts of money by treating the poor not caring about their own wealth.
The South’s long sad history of segregation is alive, it just found another victim.