One clinic is closing, another is expanding and a third is opening in Gwinnett County.
The Gwinnett Community Clinic, a Snellville non-profit for those without health insurance, will close its doors Thursday. Executive director Sheila Adcock said the clinic is closing after 26 years, in part, because many of their once-indigent patients now have health insurance. The clinic accepted only patients whose incomes were less than double the federal poverty level.
“The bottom line is, we just don’t have enough patients to sustain our model,” she said. “We decided we had met our mission.”
Adcock said patient volume has fallen by half this year. On top of that, Eastside Medical Center, where the clinic is based, needed the space. Adcock said the board decided to close down instead of looking for a new place to operate.
At the same time, leaders at two other clinics say they are taking care of more patients because of a rising need for health care for people who aren’t eligible for Medicaid and still don’t have insurance.
Greg Lang, who is expanding his Good Samaritan Health Center of Gwinnett, said his patients have increased as people couldn’t afford coverage, weren’t eligible for it or fell into the gap between Medicaid and access to a health care subsidy. Appointments at his 10-year-old clinic have more than quadrupled since 2011.
Lang is moving the health center to Buford Highway in Norcross from Lawrenceville next year, and adding at least two exam rooms and eight dental chairs. There is no similar dental service in Gwinnett.
And a retired doctor is opening Bridge Atlanta Medical Center, on Jimmy Carter Boulevard in Norcross, to give the working poor more access to specialty mental health, cardiology and other care. LeRoy Graham, the CEO and medical director of Bridge Atlanta, said his clinic will help fill a gap that exists in the county.
He expects to open the doors in January.
“There’s more than enough uninsured patients in this county,” Lang said. “There are enough uninsured people to keep all of us busy.”
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