North Mississippi Medical Clinics

Causes: Community Clinics, Health

Mission: North mississippi medical clinics, inc. (clinics) owns and operates 27 primary care and internal medicine clinics, all primarily within north mississippi and northwest alabama. Clinics is part of the north mississippi health services (nmhs) organization. The mission of nmhs is to continuously improve the health of the people of our region. Clinics works to achieve this corporate mission to improve the health of the people of this region by providing conveniently accessible, cost-effective health care of the highest quality.

Programs: Clinics serves the 24 counties in north mississippi and northwest alabama that make up the nmhs service area. In fiscal year 2017, clinics served the population of the area with 423,672 visits to its physicians. The organization operates 27 regional primary care and internal medicine clinics.

one of the primary ways clinics serves the community is by providing care to various populations for which it receives no compensation or receives compensation at rates significantly less than established rates. The board of directors of clinics has established a policy under which the organization provides care, without charge, to needy members of its community. The charity care policy states that clinics will provide necessary services to patients free of charge with household income levels based on the median income for mississippi compared to the median income nationally. The mississippi adjusted poverty guidelines is approximately 75% of the federal poverty rate. The policy further provides patients with household income levels above the mississippi adjusted poverty guidelines will be liable for no more than the amount that their household income exceeds the applicable federal poverty guidelines. The policy applies to individuals who reside in the county where the applicable clinic is located. Patients from outside the county may also be granted charity care based on the judgment of clinics management depending on their individual circumstances. The policy also requires the patient to cooperate fully with clinics' request for information with which to verify the patient's eligibility. Following that policy, clinics maintains records to identify and monitor the level of charity care it provides. These records include the amount of charges forgone for services and supplies furnished under its charity care policy. Charges forgone, based on established rates, totaled approximately $491,000 in fiscal year 2017. Based on the gross charges provided to charity patients compared to total clinics gross charges, . 60% of all services in fiscal year 2017 were provided on a charity basis. The net cost of charity care provided by clinics was approximately $400,000 in fiscal year 2017. The total cost estimate is based on the ratio of costs to charges for clinics.