$1 million in medical debt was erased for 1,000 Columbus area residents. How it happened
A total of around $1 million in medical debt for approximately 1,000 Columbus area residents is being retired as part of a new outreach project at Mercer University.
The Mercer Family Cares Initiative, funded by $30,000 in donations from three families, is erasing healthcare bills totaling more than $4.3 million for nearly 3,000 residents in 33 Georgia counties.
William Duffey Jr., retired U.S. District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia and a former partner at the Atlanta law firm King & Spalding, conceived of the idea, motivated by his frustrating experience with the high cost of medical care.
“I’ve always wondered how people navigate the system, especially those who didn’t have the patience, time or resources,” Duffey said in Mercer’s news release.
That fits the founding mission for Mercer’s School of Medicine, focusing on service to rural Georgia. The school, based in Macon, is scheduled to open its new Columbus campus in January.
Duffey recruited two friends to help make his idea a reality: Mercer Law graduates Richard “Doc” Schneider and Dwight Davis.
“I believe in personal financial responsibility and have told a lot of lawyers it is a choice to manage their lives well fiscally,” Duffey said. “But it is seldom a choice to incur medical debt. When you’re sick, have an accident or suffer from disease, you have to get care. So, it’s an involuntary imposition of a debt on someone.”
Duffey’s son, Charles, is a Mercer Law graduate and chief operating officer of Mercer Medicine, the school’s physician practice. It has healthcare clinics in Sumter, Peach, Clay and Putnam counties and plans to open one in Harris County.
Through research, Duffey connected with RIP Medical Debt, a New York-based nonprofit organization founded in 2014 by two former debt collection executives. RIP uses donations to buy bundles of medical debt at discounted rates to relieve that debt without tax consequences for recipients, but with a tax deduction for donors.
For example, according to the organization’s website, an average of every $100 raised relieves $10,000 in medical debt.
Criteria
Duffey asked RIP Medical Debt to tally the debt available to be purchased for impoverished residents in the counties where Mercer Medicine operates, as well as adjacent counties. They identified residents who matched one of the following criteria:
- Earning less than twice the federal poverty level, which is $26,500 for a four-member household.
- Having medical debt totaling at least 5% of annual income.
- Facing insolvency, meaning having more debts than assets.
Duffey and his wife, Betsy, who earned a graduate degree from Mercer, partnered with Schneider and his wife, Helen, and Davis and his wife, Brenda, to purchase an average of $1,524.46 in medical debt for 2,866 Georgia residents.
Jean Sumner, dean of the medical school, called it an honor for Mercer to be associated with this initiative.
“Access to quality health care in rural communities is negatively impacted by a number of factors,” she said in the news release. “None are more prohibitive than exorbitant price and needless bureaucracy that results in unwarranted cost of care. . . . This gracious and generous offer will save lives, prevent disease and change our state for the better.”
Here’s how much medical debt the initiative retired for residents in Columbus area counties:
- Muscogee County: $670,133.38 for 799 residents.
- Harris County: $243,905.36 for 154 residents.
- Chattahoochee County: $58,535.51 for 39 residents.
- Marion County: $50,624.66 for 41 residents.
- Talbot County: $44,917.51 for 30 residents.
