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COLUMBUS, Ga. — Area hospitals and city councilors alike were not thrilled with the city’s application process for its indigent care program, leaving councilors absolutely livid after hearing that almost no healthcare providers had even bothered to apply.
Indigent care programs like the Georgia Indigent Care Trust Fund are designed to “pay hospitals for health care for low income Georgians. Through the ICTF, many people with low incomes can get either inpatient or outpatient hospital care, even if it is not an emergency,” according to GeorgiaLegalAid.org.
Last year on June 30, 2022, the city’s contract with area healthcare providers for providing indigent care subsidy funding expired after being in effect for thirty years. One month prior to the expiration date, city councilors passionately sought to increase the number of area healthcare providers that could participate in hopes of providing a wider range of care to Columbusites who needed it.
In response to city councilors making their intent to expand coverage options very clear, city bureaucrats developed an application process for area hospitals that disqualified almost all from being able to participate; the requirements were just outlandishly unrealistic.
Nonetheless, the city sent out the new RFP in May of 2022. As would be expected, very few healthcare providers applied; they could be counted on one hand.
When city councilors were first told of this result through a presentation by deputy city manager Pam Hodge just a few weeks ago on June 27, 2023, they were absolutely furious. The presentation can be viewed on pages 135-143 of the meeting’s agenda packet.
Councilors spoke at great lengths to explain to city manager Isaiah Hugley and other city officials that the results of the city’s newly-developed indigent care application process quite obviously did not meet their intent of expanding healthcare provider options for Columbusites in need.
Councilors asked difficult questions to Hugley and others as to why the process produced such bureaucratically-botched results, though only circular excuses were given in reply. Responses included reasons such as “not many applied” and “they were unqualified,” without realizing those excuses were ironically the problems councilors wanted answers to.
After informing Hugley and other officials that they must take the entire process “back to the drawing board” from the ground up, councilors refused to vote in approval of Hugley’s shotty results.
The contract remained unrenewed.
To make matters worse, some local providers who were being funded by the original thirty-year expired contract have continued to incur expenses for providing the care while the new contract is being developed, though they have not been reimbursed.
When that issue was brought up two weeks later at the council meeting on July 11 through a proposed resolution to reimburse those healthcare providers for their year-long interim expenses, councilors were understandably hesitant to commit any unobliged funding out-of-contract until city bureaucrats have fixed their year-long shortcomings.
The item was tabled again and the resolution was not voted on. It can be viewed on pages 65-67 of the meeting’s agenda packet.
The city’s contract with local area hospitals to provide indigent care for Columbusites in need — and for inmates of the Muscogee County Jail & Prison — remains unrenewed.
It is likely to be discussed again at the next city council meeting on July 25, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.
Facts are stubborn things — and we’ll keep publishing them, whether city officials like them or not.
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