Alabama lawmakers are working on a bill that could bring more doctors to rural parts of the state. The measure would extend tax credits for physicians who practice in rural Alabama. It would eliminate earlier wording that denied that tax break to doctors who live outside the community they serve. APR listeners met Doctor Meagan Carpenter during the newsroom’s eight month investigation into the new U.S. House in District two. Carpenter says she didn’t qualify for the tax credit.
“So because I lived eight miles away in the unincorporated town limits, in the views of the way the legislation is written. I lived and worked in two different communities.”
Carpenter used to work at the critical access hospital in Washington County, Alabama of whom she speaks highly. But, issues including the lack of the state tax prompted to change jobs to Wayne General Hospital in Waynesboro, Mississippi.
"I was not entitled to that credit because I lived in the unincorporated town limits of Washington County, whereas the hospital was in the town limits of the town limits of Chatham,” said Carpenter.
APR listeners also met one of Carpenter’s Alabama patients who still makes the drive because she’s can’t get the level of care she needs for herself or her blended family with five children. Caila Savage also runs her own bakery. Here’s how today went…
”Well, like today, I had to get up at four o'clock today and get about four or five dozen cookies done, and then we had to get us ready, and then drive an hour to come to this appointment, and then however long this takes, and then I have to drive an hour back,” she said.
Savage travels to Mississippi because she can’t get the care she needs in rural Alabama. One issue is lack of doctors and hospitals. Another is the poverty rate. In rural Alabama, that runs about twenty percent,
“I even have some patients who it's like they storehouse medication because they're not sure when the next time they're going to be able to come see me,” said Carpenter. And, by “store housing” medicine, she means the patient only takes a pill when they feel sick…
“That does not mean that they're not having based on blood pressure issues. That just means they're not having a headache that day,”
The Alabama State House and Senate have until mid May to debate the planned changes to the rural doctor tax credit measure. That's when the current legislature session in Montgomery ends.
