About the Nonprofit
Visit Our Website
The mission of Macon Volunteer Clinic (MVC) is to provide free primary medical and dental care, as well as medication assistance, to the uninsured working adults of Macon-Bibb and Twiggs Counties, Georgia.
Meeting a Critical Need
Macon Volunteer Clinic has a proven track record of serving to our community for 20 years. We opened our doors in February 2003 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization to provide free health care to Macon-Bibb’s working low-income population. The clinic was conceived by Dr. Chapin Henley, a retired physician, who believed that a volunteer clinic was crucial to closing the growing healthcare gaps in the community. We are grateful to have added Twiggs County to our service area in April 2022. Georgia has one of the highest uninsured rates in the country; 20% of adults in Bibb County and 21% of adults in Twiggs County remain uninsured, despite implementation of the Affordable Care Act (2022 DPH NCHD Community Health Assessment). Lack of health insurance is the single greatest impediment to access to healthcare in the U.S. Uninsured people are less likely to receive medical care, more likely to die early, and more likely to have poor health status.
Population Served
MVC provides free medical and dental care and medication assistance to Bibb and Twiggs County residents who are low-income, working, and uninsured. To qualify for our services, a patient must be earning at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Level, and be between 18-64 years old. In 2023, 97% of our patients earned less than $35,000 annually. These working adults are in the gap of healthcare access where they make too little to afford regular medical care, but too much for many government assistance programs. Therefore, they are facing a structural barrier to the healthcare industry.
Consequently, free clinics like MVC are critical in providing the health care needed to treat and prevent catastrophic problems. The medical care that they receive from MVC helps to keep them working, allows them to address ongoing health challenges and gives them preventive care so that they can avoid long term health impacts. They can then avoid using the emergency room or urgent care facilities in our community as their primary resource for healthcare, saving everyone in our community from carrying that financial load.
Model of Care
MVC provides health care, dental, eye and medical exams to our patients through the services provided by our volunteers. MVC medical providers give their time and expertise to provide a full spectrum of healthcare services to meet patients’ needs. We are thankful for our 151 active volunteers who contribute their time and talents to fulfilling the clinic’s mission. MVC receives no state or federal funding and is 100% philanthropy funded. We rely on the generosity of individuals, foundations, and a team of volunteers to sustain the Clinic’s operations.