Economic development notes

From Staff

CSRA ALLIANCE FOR FORT GORDON

Eisenhower serves as premier medical center: Augusta is known as a medical center of excellence, and area medical care has a major economic impact. However, the impact of medical care for the military community is not as well known.

Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center was established at Fort Gordon in April 1975 and is the premier Army regional medical center supporting the southeastern U.S. and Puerto Rico. Although beneficiaries visit from throughout the region, more than 56,000 eligible active duty, retiree and family member beneficiaries live within a 40-mile radius.

The medical center, however, does not always have the available capacity in all specialties so beneficiaries are referred to area providers within the military healthcare network, Tricare. From October 2006 to September 2007, the medical center purchased almost $110 million in health care from local area providers.

Of this, about $4 million was for supplemental care for active duty service members. More than $42 million was for Tricare payments for beneficiaries younger than 64, which would primarily be retirees and family members. More than $58 million was for Tricare For Life beneficiaries, or those older than 65, an indicator of the extensive military retiree population in the local area.

There are numerous formal partnership agreements between Eisenhower and area facilities for optimizing services, such as a $4.5 million contract with MCG for all obstetrics care. Eisenhower purchased local medical care has increased more than 500 percent in only five years, an indicator not only of the growth of Fort Gordon, but the attractiveness of this area for military retirees.

 

From the Monday, January 14, 2008 edition of the Augusta Chronicle