Uninsured Travis County Residents Hotline Created Amid COVID-19

AUSTIN, TX — Central Health-funded CommUnityCare Health Centers on Tuesday launched a hotline staffed with medical professionals to help uninsured Travis County residents experiencing coronavirus-like symptoms, officials announced.

People experiencing COVID-19 symptoms who are uninsured and do not have an established doctor can call the COVID-19 Hotline at (512) 978-8775 for guidance, officials said. Starting on Tuesday, medical professionals answered phones from callers before assigning degrees of urgency related to their medical needs — triaged in the nomenclature of health care workers — in specifically catering to the uninsured, preventing them from going directly to a clinic, urgent care, or emergency department before a medical assessment.

“We are working with our local public health officials and the community to contain the spread of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and its associated disease (COVID-19), and we know Travis County residents with no insurance and no doctor need information,” CommUnityCare President & CEO Jaeson Fournier said in a prepared statement. “The test for SARS-CoV-2 requires an order from a health provider, and is based on risk criteria. There are many instances where a test is not recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If you want to find out if a test is recommended for you, please call the hotline. “

For the time being, officials said, the hotline will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. “If demand increases, we will add more capacity,” Fournier noted.

The hotline is for people who are uninsured or patients of CommUnityCare who have been in close contact with a person known to have any of the symptoms of COVID-19 or diagnosed with COVID-19, officials explained. Symptoms of COVID-19 may include a fever, dry cough and shortness of breath.

Non-U.S. Citizens/ Non-U.S. Permanent Residents

For non-U.S. citizens and non-U.S. permanent residents, COVID-19-related testing, treatment or preventive care is not included in the new public charge test, officials said. This means COVID-19-related care will not negatively impact their path to citizenship, and is permissible for a government program to pay for the test.

About Central Health

Central Health is the local public agency that connects Travis County residents with low income to quality health care. We work with a network of partners to eliminate health disparities and reach our vision of Travis County becoming a model healthy community.

About CommUnityCare Health Centers

CommUnityCare’s vision is to improve the health of the community by increasing access to the best care possible. Today, CommUnityCare provides services at 25 locations in Travis County. Each year, its health centers provide approximately 360,000 medical and dental patient appointments representing more than 98,000 individual patients.