ATLANTA – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Wednesday the award of $30 million in COVID relief funds to organizations working to address housing insecurity in Georgia.
The funds will be distributed among eight organizations.
Atlanta’s BeltLine Partnership and Westside Future Fund will receive $3 million and $2 million, respectively.
Westside Future Fund plans to use the funding to build two three-story walk-up apartment buildings in Atlanta’s English Avenue neighborhood. Of the 26 units planned, half will be reserved for people earning below 60% of the area median income.
Quest Community Development Organization also works on Atlanta’s West Side and will receive close to $5 million to create a 40-unit community for people 55 and older who are homeless or at risk of losing their housing. Eight of the units will be reserved for veterans.
The Housing Resource Group, headquartered in Atlanta, will receive $5 million to build a 60-unit affordable rental community. Almost all of the units are reserved for those with low incomes and at risk of homelessness.
And DreamKey Partners plans to finance 70 affordable housing units for elderly people living in Riverdale, south of Atlanta.
DASH for LaGrange, a group that builds affordable housing, will receive $4 million in funding to develop and lease 16 affordable rental units.
In Macon, River Edge Foundation will use the funds to develop 26 affordable, one-bedroom apartments for low-income elderly people with disabilities. The group also plans to provide additional supportive services to residents, according to information provided by the governor’s office.
Wealth Watchers will build a 20-unit affordable housing development for farm laborers in partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture.
“When I first took office, I promised to make Georgia a state where all people can succeed, no matter their background,” Kemp said. “The funds we’re awarding today will further help those still struggling in the aftermath of COVID-19 regain stability and housing security.”
Last month, Kemp announced a first round of awards to address housing insecurity totaling $62 million to 20 organizations.
The grants come from federal COVID-19 relief funds allocated to Georgia under the American Rescue Plan Act Congress passed last year.
A spokesperson for Democrat Stacey Abrams – who is challenging Kemp for the governorship in November – criticized the awards, calling them an “election-year gimmick.”
“Georgia is facing a housing affordability crisis under Brian Kemp — but all the governor can do is try to desperately take credit for spending federal funds he opposed in the first place,” said Alex Floyd, a spokesperson for the campaign. “Georgians deserve real solutions that will bring down the cost of housing.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Belinda Maley describes her son’s death while he was in jail in Savannah.
ATLANTA – A new report a U.S. Senate subcommittee released Tuesday found that the Justice Department (DOJ) failed to properly count the deaths of close to 1,000 people in state and local prisons and jails last year.
The oversight committee, chaired by Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct a separate analysis of jail and prison deaths.
The GAO found that the DOJ had neglected to properly count 990 deaths in 2021.
Data on those deaths was available in public records, yet the information was missing from the DOJ data, the GAO’s Gretta Goodwin told the committee.
Many of the death records that DOJ did collect were missing key elements such as demographic data or information about the manner of the person’s death. And in 2019, the DOJ stopped releasing the data publicly.
Congress has required DOJ to collect and analyze data on the deaths of people in custody since it enacted the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA) in 2000.
“Despite a clear charge from Congress to determine who is dying in prisons and jails across the country, where they are dying, and why they are dying, the Department of Justice is failing to do so,” Ossoff said. “This failure undermines efforts to address the urgent humanitarian crisis ongoing behind bars across the country.”
Belinda Maley shared the story of the death of her son, Matthew Loflin, when he was detained in the Chatham County Detention Center in Savannah for a non-violent drug offense.
The committee listened to the painful recording of the last, brief phone call between the mother and her son.
“The pure horror of Matthew’s voice made me feel as though I was dying as well,” Maley said, noting she was only able to visit her son once. “Matthew died a slow, painful death over the course of weeks.”
Maley said the jail failed to give her son proper care for a heart condition. She attributed the lack of care to the private medical provider’s profit motive.
“Enforcement of the Death in Custody Reporting Act is so important and could be a tool to hold the for-profit, jail and prison medical providers accountable for unnecessary deaths like Matthew’s and others,” Maley told the committee.
Vanessa Fano also shared the story of the death of her brother, Jonathan Fano, when he was detained in the East Baton Rouge Parish Prison in Louisiana. Despite having diagnosed mental illnesses, Jonathan received no mental evaluation while imprisoned, she said.
He was even placed in isolation after slitting his wrists and eventually committed suicide by hanging himself.
Prior to this incident, Fano said, she and her family trusted government institutions.
“When we finally saw his lifeless body … it was only then we realized how wrong we were to place our trust in this system,” Fano said.
Both Ossoff and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., the committee’s ranking Republican, criticized the DOJ.
“Over the course of 22 years, I would have thought this information-gathering process would have been pretty well-honed,” Johnson said.
“There’s no doubt this has been poorly managed,” Ossoff said.
Maureen Henneberg, deputy assistant attorney general for operations and management at the DOJ, said her agency faced obstacles in collecting the data because of changes Congress made to the law requiring the reporting in 2013.
The DOJ recommends that Congress amend the legislation to fix those problems.
Henneberg said the move from one sub-agency to another within the DOJ in 2019 caused problems and that the agency has difficulty getting accurate data from states. DOJ is committed to improving the data collection, she said.
“Two Americans who were sitting in jail, pretrial detainees convicted of no crime, died in the custody of their own government, and there are thousands more,” Ossoff said as he concluded the hearing. “We have got to get this right.”
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – Georgians who are members of two large Medicare Advantage plans may face a tougher time getting cataract surgery – a routine eye procedure for older people.
That’s because Aetna and Humana now require doctors in Georgia to get prior approval for cataract removal for Medicare Advantage enrollees.
Georgia eye doctors say the requirements are burdensome and don’t apply in most other states.
The problem began last year when Aetna started requiring prior authorizations for cataract surgeries in its Medicare Advantage plans across the country.
This summer Aetna rolled back the policy – except in Georgia and Florida.
Six weeks ago, Humana, another large Medicare Advantage insurer, enacted a similar policy requiring prior authorizations for cataract surgeries in Georgia.
Georgia eye doctors say Aetna and Humana’s new requirements force them to engage in lengthy back-and-forths over billing for what should be routine.
“It’s a burden and a delay,” said Dr. J. Chandler Berg, an Albany-area doctor and president of the Georgia Society of Ophthalmology.
Berg said his practice tries to schedule cataract surgeries for certain Medicare Advantage patients a month – instead of one week – in advance to allow extra time for the prior approval process.
“It’s a lot more work,” Berg said. “It’s a delay on the patient.”
Sometimes insurers require patients to get glasses with anti-reflective coating before they can get cataract surgery. Berg finds that policy a waste of time and money because glasses cannot fix cataract glare.
Dr. Ninita Brown of Atlanta’s Thomas Eye Group said the new policy has added work for her already stretched-thin staff and distressed her patients.
Brown said she understands why some new or rare treatments need prior approval but doesn’t think the requirements should apply for something as common as cataract removal.
“It kind of surprised me that someone would look at this as something that is some type of extra benefit of health care, which really should be the standard of care,” she said. “It’s … an unnecessary burden on these old folks that are struggling already with their vision.”
Cataracts cloud vision and make people more susceptible to falls and auto accidents. They can even contribute to increased dementia risk, according to a recent study.
Most adults will need the procedure at some point, ophthalmologists say, and it’s highly effective and safe. The procedure is one of the most common surgeries in the United States and can be performed at an outpatient surgery center or at a hospital, according to the National Eye Institute.
More than half of Georgians enrolled in Medicare, the federal insurance program for adults 65 and older, are members of private Medicare Advantage plans rather than the traditional Medicare program for their health insurance, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Older Americans can enroll in Medicare Advantage plans through private health insurance companies instead of obtaining health care through traditional Medicare.
Medicare Advantage plans have seen rapid growth nationwide over the past five years.
Humana has about 257,000 members in Georgia, the company said. Federal data indicate Aetna has about 133,000 Medicare Advantage members in Georgia, although the company would not confirm the number.
Humana and Aetna said their different Medicare Advantage policy in Georgia is due to a pre-existing relationship with Florida-based iCare Health Solutions, a contractor that handles eye-care claims.
“The reason for this change is to better align with Medicare’s approach to determining coverage for these procedures in Georgia,” Humana spokesman Jim Turner said. “iCare … is using prevailing Medicare coverage criteria ….and follows Medicare timeline guidelines to ensure prompt replies to all requests.”
Aetna analyzed “real-time data” about cataract surgeries for a year and, based on its findings, decided to discontinue the prior authorization policy earlier this year, said Kimberly Eafano, a spokesperson for the company, which is owned by CVS.
But the situation in Georgia and Florida is different, she said.
“Aetna has been engaged in a 10-year relationship with iCare Health Solutions to manage ophthalmology and optometry services in Florida,” Eafano said. “Almost two years ago, Aetna expanded this arrangement to include the state of Georgia, where iCare also has a community presence.”
Officials from iCare did not respond to multiple emails and phone calls requesting comment.
A spokesperson for the federal regulator of Advantage plans – the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – said Medicare Advantage contractors are allowed to make their own decisions about covering services but, in general, Advantage plans have to follow traditional Medicare’s coverage guidelines.
“Medicare Advantage plans may apply internal coverage policies, including additional coverage requirements to better define the need for the service, that are no more restrictive than traditional Medicare’s national and local coverage policies,” he said.
“For services that are not subject to existing local and national coverage requirements, Medicare Advantage plans may apply third-party guidelines, such as guidelines used by contractors engaged by the Medicare Advantage plan to make coverage determinations.”
Spokespersons for the Georgia Attorney General and the state Department of Insurance both said their agencies forward complaints about Medicare Advantage plans in Georgia to CMS.
Prior authorization requirements are a national concern. A report the Office of Inspector General in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released last April found around 13% of Medicare Advantage prior authorization denials were for services that would have been covered under traditional Medicare.
“These denials can create significant negative effects for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries,” the report said.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Sept. 14 that would reform the prior authorization process for Medicare Advantage plans. The Improving Seniors’ Timely Access to Care bill had bipartisan support and even buy-in from the large insurance companies.
The legislation would require Medicare Advantage companies to set up an electronic prior authorization system and provide real-time approvals for common procedures. It would also beef up transparency requirements and require Medicare Advantage plans to publicly post information about how they deal with prior authorizations.
The bill is now before the U.S. Senate.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
Gov. Brian Kemp, DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond (left), Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts (right) and other leaders address Atlanta hospital closures on Thursday.
ATLANTA – The state will funnel $130 million in federal COVID relief funds to Grady Memorial Hospital to help offset the impact of the looming closure of WellStar’s Atlanta Medical Center (AMC), Gov. Brian Kemp announced Thursday.
The Republican governor and two Atlanta-area Democratic leaders addressed how Georgia’s capital city will cope with the closure of the WellStar facility in November. Last month, WellStar announced it plans to close the busy hospital whose 460 beds serve patients from surrounding neighborhoods and across Georgia.
WellStar’s decision to close AMC comes after the company announced earlier this year that it would close a smaller hospital in South Atlanta.
The closures put the city’s other large hospital, Grady Memorial, in the spotlight as politicians and health-care providers seek to figure out how Grady and other facilities will serve patients formerly cared for at AMC.
The cash infusion Kemp announced Thursday will let Grady add nearly 200 beds. Grady already was planning to bring 40 new beds online in November. The additional beds will be added in a rolling fashion over the next year.
The state will also provide Grady with a mobile hospital unit that will add 24 beds to the hospital’s capacity, Kemp said.
Georgia recently started a new program that will increase reimbursement rates at Grady for people on Medicaid if the hospital meets certain performance targets, Kemp said. This change to the funding formula will provide Grady with an additional $130 million on top of the federal infusion.
“These are not Band Aid solutions,” Kemp said. “They are meaningful, carefully thought out and implemented measures designed to ensure this cornerstone of Atlanta’s health care network is on solid footing for many years.
“It is our goal to see these investments strengthen Grady’s long-term ability to serve patients who would have otherwise chosen AMC.”
Fulton County Commission Chairman Robb Pitts and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond stood alongside Kemp as he made the announcement and said they supported the new plan – but that more work is needed to shore up the city’s medical system.
Pitts said his county recently increased funding to Grady by $11 million.
“This, though, is a short-term solution to the problem,” he said.
Pitts said he and his team also are looking at how another health-care facility in South Fulton could be funded and built.
“The governor through a very generous appropriation has provided us with a reprieve but not a bailout – and that’s important for everyone here today to understand,” Thurmond added.
Thurmond said people across Atlanta share a need for good health care, and the issue should not be politicized.
“Affordable health care is not about Republicans and Democrats,” he said. “It’s about saving lives and maintaining the quality of life for all of our citizens.”
Democrat Stacey Abrams – who is challenging Kemp for the governorship in November – said during a separate press conference that the new plan does not go far enough to address the strains on Atlanta’s health-care system and that Georgia should expand Medicaid.
“The argument that has been put forward is that a stopgap measure will solve the problem,” she said. “Problem is the math doesn’t work.”
By not expanding Medicaid, the state is foregoing $3.5 billion in federal funding each year that could provide low-income Georgians with health insurance and help support Georgia hospitals, Abrams said.
“Adding 180 beds or 200 beds at Grady cannot solve a systemic collapse of public health,” she said.
Kemp said on the campaign trail last week that expanding Medicaid would not save AMC. He has rejected expanding Medicaid coverage as too expensive.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
ATLANTA – The Georgia Foundation for Public Education announced the awarding of $10,000 grants Wednesday to seven rural schools and school districts.
The latest awards – which will fund projects ranging from virtual reality programming to building a pollinator garden for bees – show that schools across the state aim to deliver unique experiences, often outside of the traditional classroom, to help students learn.
The funding for the foundation’s grants for rural counties comes from the sale of the Georgia “Educator” and “Support Education” license plates.
Unity Elementary School plans to purchase virtual reality gear and programming to let its students in West Georgia see and experience the world. The virtual reality programming will supplement lesson plans with virtual experiences in language arts, social studies and science.
Far to the south, Quitman Elementary School in Brooks County will use its grant to grow a pollinator garden for its bee colony so students can learn about plants, insects, gardening and climate.
Tate Elementary School of Pickens County in North Georgia also plans to get its students outdoors – and reading at the same time.
The school will build a “StoryWalk” – an outdoor path with pages from a story book posted alongside. Students can walk and read a story at the same time. Local high school students studying construction will help build the StoryWalk.
Some of the funds will go toward making sure students can access the arts.
Franklin County High School plans to purchase eight musical instruments and other supplies for its band program, which serves 60 students. Dawson County will use the grant to increase access to drama, art and music materials across the county.
In central Georgia, South Dodge Elementary School plans to purchase materials for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs. And Wheeler County High School will set up an after-school program focused on service and leadership.
“From the first disbursement of the Rural Education Fund grants, we have seen schools and districts utilize the funds to support bold, creative, and student-centric projects. The 2022-2023 grantees carry on that legacy,” foundation Executive Director Paige Pushkin said. “I cannot wait to see the work the seven 2022-2023 grant recipients accomplish.”
Separately, the state Board of Education voted Tuesday to accept $34 million from the Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund.
Around $2 million will go to expand both tele-audiology services and services and equipment for students who are blind or deaf. An additional $32 million will pay for back-to-school supply supplements for educators and support personnel.
This story is available through a news partnership with Capitol Beat News Service, a project of the Georgia Press Educational Foundation.
