LONGTIME DOCTOR TREATS MANY MEDICAID PATIENTS IN SOUTH CAPE

Dr. George Ringland sees lots of Medicaid patients.

Many of Cape Girardeau's low-income residents on the city's south side have gone to his office at 629 Good Hope for treatment. Ringland, a family doctor, doesn't turn them away.

"I take care of the poor people down in South Cape. I make house calls to Medicaid patients down on Linden where the old people stay," he said.

"I was taught to take care of the patients and the money will take care of itself," said the 77-year-old Ringland.

About 65 percent of his patients are on Medicaid, he estimated.

Medicaid patients often have difficulty securing a family doctor, and many local doctors are simply not taking new patients, regardless of whether they are on Medicaid or not.

Ringland said Medicaid pays only a fraction of the doctor's bill. "They pay you $17 an office call." The full charge for an office visit for a new patient is $60, he said.

But Ringland said he's got "many good cash patients" and has managed to make a living. Still, he conceded, "I couldn't afford to build those nice new homes."

Ringland said that after he read in the Southeast Missourian Sunday about the plight of an elderly Cape Girardeau woman on Medicaid who had been left without a family doctor he promptly called to offer his services.

The health departments of Cape Girardeau, Bollinger and Stoddard counties are seeking to set up federally funded clinics that would treat Medicaid patients and others.

"It would be nice if we have a clinic," said Ringland, adding that he would be willing to "take a day off and work in that clinic for them."

Ringland graduated from the Kirksville College of Osteopathy and Surgery in 1943.

He began practicing in Cape Girardeau in 1947, initially having to deal with a public skeptical about doctors of osteopathy. "When I came here in '47, I was considered a quack," recalled Ringland.

The Cape Girardeau physician has suffered three heart attacks, but he's not ready to retire. "I like working, so I guess I will work until I die."