VALDOSTA — Dr. Leon Smith, one of the four family practitioners with Valdosta Family Medicine who resigned their privileges earlier this week from South Georgia Medical Center, responded Saturday to an article in The Valdosta Daily Times concerning the resignations.

Smith stated that the article, while accurate, was not a complete reflection of the physicians’ reasons for the resignations. He said that the issues raised in the story by Dr. Roy Swindle, chief of staff at SGMC, and James McGahee, chief executive officer at the hospital, were valid issues facing health care today, but not the reasons for the doctor’s resignations.

“We never complained about taking care of indigent patients or asked to get paid for taking call. We feel that the general internists and family physicians have been forced to take care of patients that would have been better served through the emergency room by sub-specialists. Internists and family physicians have been taking care of patients outside of our specialties.”

The four physicians, Smith, Dr. Stewart Williams, Dr. David Pierce and Dr. Richard Rickman, are all family practitioners with Valdosta Family Medicine. Four specialists with the group did not resign their admitting privileges at SGMC.

Smith said he had brought his concerns to the hospital administration and had several discussions in the last six months, requesting that all doctors be required to do their part through the emergency room and share the responsibility of care, particularly for those patients whose needs fell outside the training of internists and family physicians.

“When no action was taken, we felt we had to resign rather than to continue to participate in that system,” Smith said. “We did not do this lightly.”

He responded to questions raised by callers to the newspaper office that the doctors resigned because they are stockholders at Smith Northview Hospital and wanted to steer more business to that facility.

He said that not all of the physicians in his group are stockholders in that facility, but added that a significant number of all physicians in Valdosta are.

“If our motive was to increase profits at Smith, we would have stayed on staff at SGMC and just admitted all of our poor patients there.”

Smith said a significant number of patients the group sees are poor and unable to pay for care, and he requested reassurance from Robert Bauer, the chief executive officer of Smith Northview, that the hospital would take on the additional indigent patients the group admits, prior to resigning from SGMC.

According to Smith, Valdosta Family Medicine wrote off hundreds of thousands of dollars in care provided to poor and indigent patients in 2003, with more than 90 percent of that amount coming from patients seen in the office and the walk-in clinic, with only a small percentage seen through the ER.

Valdosta Family Medicine operates a walk-in clinic with early evening and Saturday hours, which Smith said functions like an emergency room. “We don’t turn sick and hurt people away,” he said. “We are very lucky to be doctors. It’s a blessing to be able to provide healthcare, and there will always be a segment of society that can’t afford it.”

The doctor stated that he is hopeful the hospital will address the concerns which have been raised and opened the door for the possibility of the physicians reapplying for privileges when the issues are resolved.

“The hospital will have to find a way to make sure that patients that are admitted to the ER are taken care of by the specialists most appropriate to their condition,” he said.



To contact Business Editor Kay Harris, please call 244-3400, ext. 280.