Colquitt Regional Medical Center

MOULTRIE, Ga. — Twenty-five percent of Colquitt County’s residents have no health insurance. Despite that, Colquitt Regional Medical Center says it won’t turn anyone away if they’re looking for care, especially not now.

COVID-19 has changed many policies for CRMC since the virus was found in Georgia. Anyone entering the hospital is screened, no visitors under 18 are allowed, and hospital personnel have been “extremely judicious” in their use of personal protective equipment, a hospital spokeswoman said.

One thing that won’t change is its terms of caring for uninsured patients, according to a hospital release.

“Our Emergency Department is always open and we provide care to anyone who needs it regardless of their ability to pay,” the release read. 

In fiscal year 2019, Colquitt Regional provided more than $9 million in indigent care and had more than $30 million in uncompensated care, Emily Watson, director of marketing for the hospital, said. Of that $30 million, the federal and state governments reimbursed the hospital for $2.4 million, about 8%.

Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported between 28 and 30 million Americans are uninsured.

Colquitt Regional’s 2019 Community Needs Health Needs Assessment reports 25.7 percent of Colquitt County’s population has no insurance. With a county population of 45,890, that calculates out to almost 12,000 uninsured people here.

“We encourage anyone who is experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 that needs immediate medical attention to come to our Emergency Department,” the hospital’s press release read.

The hospital continues to test for COVID-19 daily. As of about 9 a.m. Wednesday it had given 222 tests; 27 were positive, 96 were negative and 99 were still awaiting results. Two deaths have been attributed to the virus.

As another part of its response to the coronavirus, CRMC assembled a COVID-19 task force that meets each morning to discuss updates from the CDC, Georgia Department of Public Health and the World Health Organization. The task force includes the administrative team, the chief medical officer and the infectious disease specialist who all meet daily.

Colquitt Regional is also in constant communication with all surrounding medical facilities, assisting when it can through sharing supplies, transferring patients or sharing knowledge of practices that didn’t work, its release read.

“We can learn a great deal by observing how other facilities have handled the influx of patients, and that allows us to be better prepared in the event that we see the same increase in COVID-19 volume,” the release read.