Healthcare Funding

While living at an area nursing home, a man in his eighties developed unruly behavior. The home would no longer keep him, and sent him to a metro hospital. The hospital assumed he had dementia, and transferred him to a psychiatric facility. His condition worsened. Desperate to help him, the man's daughter brought him to the Wesley Woods clinic. Our doctors are enlightened about geriatric complications. They realized the underlying problem was not dementia, but a debilitating kidney infection. With treatment, the father's gentleness and better health returned...

Through enlightenment, we produce positive change.

The field of geriatric care involves many challenges. Older adults often have multiple chronic medical conditions that involve uniquely complex issues. To serve these individuals best, it's essential to take a holistic or all-inclusive view of their well-being.

Wesley Woods offers specialists in geriatrics, neurology, psychiatry, rehabilitative medicine and research, all in one place. Together they participate in the care of our patients, providing it more comprehensively.

Unfortunately, hospital costs are skyrocketing for conditions most typical of elderly patients. Wesley Woods Hospital is Georgia's largest provider of psychiatric and neuro-psychiatric services to the elderly. When Medicare dramatically reduced reimbursements for psychiatric services in 2005, the loss to our programs was $3.2 million—an amount equaling 91 percent of the total reduction in Georgia.

Almost all of our patients are Medicare recipients, with no other insurance to cover their healthcare costs. This is why the Foundation contributes almost $2 million a year. So our patients won't be denied the compassionate, expert care they need.