Council members vote to renew lease on health clinic

Published 12:32 pm Tuesday, August 8, 2017

DALTON, Ga. — The members of the Dalton City Council on Monday voted to renew the Partnership Health Center’s lease in the Mack Gaston Community Center for one year. Now, it’s up to Georgia Mountains Health Services, the Morganton-based nonprofit agency that operates the clinic, to decide whether the terms are acceptable.

Georgia Mountains CEO Steve Miracle said Monday afternoon city officials had not sent him a copy of the lease but he was able to read it over the weekend after the board’s agenda was posted on the web.

“When we receive a final, official contract from the city we will take a close look at it,” said Miracle.

The council voted 4-0 to renew the clinic’s lease of space in the community center through July 31, 2018, for $1 a year. The clinic provides low-cost health care to low-income individuals. Mayor Dennis Mock typically votes only in the event of a tie.

The lease the council approved says the clinic must be open five consecutive days a week from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The version that was posted contained no exceptions for holidays but that was changed before the meeting and the version approved by the council does allow the clinic to be closed for holidays without violating the lease.

The lease says the clinic must give the city’s human resources department “reasonable prior notice” if it will not be open the required hours. Miracle says that language isn’t very precise but says it might give the clinic the flexibility it needs to close for training and other expected events. But he says the clinic has one doctor who works three days a week, a nurse practitioner who works two days a week and another nurse practitioner who works one day a month, so if the person on duty that day is sick or has a family situation or other issue that might keep them from seeing patients there might be no way to give the city advance notice.

City Attorney Jim Bisson said Monday night that if clinic staff find out two hours before it is scheduled to open that circumstances beyond anyone’s control will keep it from opening then “reasonable prior notice” would only require them to inform the city as soon as they know.

Mock says the city needs to make sure residents are getting the services they need.

“The taxpayer is providing that space,” he said. “We need to make sure that we are getting good bang for those bucks.”

In a May 9 letter to Georgia Mountains cancelling the lease effective July 31, Mock did not say why he terminated the lease. Shortly after, he said in an interview, “We’ve had some concerns about whether they have been open the hours they should be.”

Council members voted last month to extend the lease to Aug. 31.

Angela Estrada has been a patient at the clinic since it opened five years ago and was a patient at Georgia Mountains’ Chatsworth clinic before that. She said Monday she has never had a problem getting an appointment at the clinic.

“This clinic is so much more convenient for me,” she said. “I couldn’t get to Chatsworth now if I had to. I don’t have a vehicle. A lot of the people who come here don’t have vehicles, but they can walk here.”

Miracle said he also has questions about a provision of the lease that calls on the clinic to report to the city each month how many patients it treats and how many are covered by Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly, or Medicaid, the joint state/federal program that provides health insurance for low-income people.

“I have no problem sharing those numbers with anyone. We are proud of the care we provide,” he said. “But we’ve had no discussions about how they plan to use that information, whether they expect us to see a certain number of patients or a certain share of Medicare and Medicaid patients.”

Miracle says if the clinic is going to be judged by certain metrics he’d like to know what they are. He says the clinic has about 3,700 patient visits a year. He says 51 percent of the clinic’s patients have no insurance; 40 percent have Medicaid, PeachCare (which provides health coverage for children in low-income families) or Medicare; and the rest have private insurance.

Council member Gary Crews said he and other council members don’t have any specific numbers they are looking for.

“We don’t have any goals we have set. We just want to make sure we know what is going on there,” he said.

Mock said he understands the lease may not be “100 percent” agreeable.

“But we are willing to work through the details with Mr. Miracle,” he said.