Bobbie Barker panicked last week when she found out her physician assistant was gone.
Barker, 78, learned that Paul Ballinger no longer worked at Chickamauga Family Practice when she called the clinic’s phone number and heard an operator inform her that the service closed Oct. 15 due to budget constraints for Hutcheson Medical Center. Barker then drove to the clinic, worried about what happened to her medical records.
“With all the sicknesses I have,” she said, “you need those records. You never can tell. I’ve had cancer twice. I always try to keep me a good doctor.”
In the end, the hospital resolved the issue relatively painlessly for Barker, who said she suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis. A Hutcheson employee is still working at the shuttered clinic, where patients can provide their information in exchange for a copy of their records.
Hutcheson CEO Farrell Hayes said there is a backlog on the process because so many patients are trying to get copies of their records from the closed clinics in Chickamauga and LaFayette. Hayes said the process should take only a few days. And indeed, three business days after she applied for her records, a hospital employee called Barker to say she could pick up her records, she said.