MercyMed of Columbus

MercyMed aims to accomplish three primary goals:

1. To reduce the effects of the systemic barriers to healthcare for populations most affected by these barriers.
2. To improve short- and long-term health outcomes for MercyMed’s patients and the communities in which our patients live.
3. To proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and demonstrate His love through the healthcare we provide.

MercyMed strives to live out our vision and values in all we do, including efforts to achieve our organizational goals.

OUR VISION: In response to God’s grace, we desire to be a part of the redemptive work of Christ to the economically, socially, and spiritually impoverished communities of Columbus, Georgia. We envision an incarnational ministry through a community of Believers who use their particular gifts to care for the poor and who bring them into their fellowship.

Our primary means for accomplishing this goal is through a health center that provides excellent care physically, emotionally, and spiritually. We work hand-in-hand with existing ministries as well as help create new ministries as needed to bring Christ to the poor, crippled, blind, and lame.

As a community of Believers, we envision and earnestly long for the heart of Christ to be developed in us so that we might truly love our neighbor and redeem lives in the communities in and around Columbus, Georgia. If our hearts are not first healed by Christ, our labor will be in vain. All that we do is for the Glory of God.

OUR VALUES:
- We operate as a family.
- We provide access to quality healthcare.
- We facilitate trust with our patients.
- We believe in advocacy— on behalf of our patients and community.
- We practice innovation— finding new ways to meet needs, both big and small.

MercyMed’s healthcare delivery model is focused specifically on reducing the most prevalent healthcare access barriers in our local communities. Two of the most significant barriers to healthcare are inadequate health insurance and cost. To address these barriers, MercyMed provides healthcare to uninsured children and adults on a sliding-fee scale based on household income. MercyMed also accepts Medicaid and Medicare – a critical strategy for ensuring healthcare access, given the low number of private healthcare providers who accept these two public insurance plans. Further, children who receive care at MercyMed’s school-based health center and patients who are unhoused do not pay anything for their services. MercyMed also strives to reduce transportation barriers for our patients. MercyMed has two main clinics, located within neighborhoods with the highest barriers to healthcare. MercyMed has also established an embedded healthcare clinic in a Title I elementary school to further reduce transportation barriers for children and working parents. Based on the school clinic’s success, MercyMed will open a second embedded clinic in an affordable housing community in early 2023.

MercyMed recognizes that a healthcare visit once or twice each year does not always lead to improved health outcomes. To this end, MercyMed strives to provide a medical home for the patients who trust us with their healthcare needs. This model of healthcare delivery involves keeping patients with the same primary care provider as much as possible, offering additional healthcare and wellness services that increase patients’ capacity to improve their own health, and helping patients coordinate appointments with other social service agencies for supportive resources such as food, clothing, employment, or shelter.

MercyMed has 40 employees and more than 100 volunteers who are dedicated to ensuring everyone in our community can afford to care for their health. Our staff and volunteers are comprised of a wide range of clinical providers (e.g., medical doctors, dentists, physical therapists) and support staff (e.g., receptionists, operational staff) with extensive experience providing and supporting high-quality healthcare. MercyMed delivers care in two full-time health clinics that are open to the public and one part-time school-based health center.

Financially, our operations are sustained through a variety of sources. We receive many generous donations from individuals, churches, businesses, and foundations, which cover approximately 65% of our costs. Our Chief Development Officer works diligently to identify new funding sources and maintain relationships with previous donors. His work allows us to continue to diversify our donor base, ensuring long-term sustainability. The remaining 35% of our costs are covered by revenue generated from patient and insurance payments. This revenue mix ensures that we will be able to provide discounted healthcare services to patients well into the future.

Dr. Grant Scarborough founded MercyMed in 2012 in response to high poverty rates and lack of healthcare access in the Columbus region. Within only two years, the need for healthcare outpaced our clinic space. In the summer of 2014, we opened a second full-time clinic and have since expanded our main clinic from 3,000 square feet to 9,000. The Lord has continued to bless and sustain us in recent years! We have established an embedded clinic in a Title I elementary school and are in the final planning stages for a third embedded clinic in an affordable housing community. We recently transitioned our part-time dental clinic to a full-time operation and are renovating our Steam Mill Road clinic, which will allow MercyMed to care for an additional 1,000 patients each year.

We continue to seek the Lord’s guidance on how to best meet our community’s growing need for physical, spiritual, and emotional healing. As such, we are planning to expand again. MercyMed has identified strategic areas of growth to meet patients’ needs. These areas include adding a full-time psychologist to the counseling team, increasing the number of available patient exam rooms for primary care, and researching the possibility of opening an on-site pharmacy so patients can access affordable medications. MercyMed is also seeking input from our patients and community partners to determine the feasibility of adding more space, more providers, and more services to meet the ever-growing need for affordable healthcare in the Columbus area.