May 20, 2024
Hospital district continues to expand services for Travis County residents with low income
(Austin) – Central Health, Travis County’s hospital district, has published its Fiscal Year 2023 Annual Report, which details its continued growth in both the number of people it serves and the services it provides.
In FY2023, Central Health provided access to healthcare to more than 155,000 Travis County residents with low income, a 2% increase from the prior year. Central Health’s expanded provider network now includes 247 locations across the county, a 12% increase that includes new primary care, specialty care, and substance use treatment providers.
Central Health began its direct practice of medicine in several key specialties, such as podiatry, in FY23; the hospital district’s specialty care services have already seen exponential growth in FY 2024.
“As Central Health marks our 20th anniversary in 2024 and invests over $750 million through 2030 in our Healthcare Equity Plan, we are creating a new healthcare reality for the more than 280,000 Travis County residents with low income who need and deserve our help,” said Central Health President and CEO Dr. Patrick Lee. “We’re bridging gaps to provide vital services from prenatal nutrition to end-of-life care, tending to all aspects of body and mind so whole lives and communities can truly get better.”
Key milestones detailed in the FY2023 report include:
- Two new full-service CommUnityCare clinics opened in Pflugerville and at Chalmers Courts in east Austin
- Improved access to specialty care in podiatry, skilled nursing, gastroenterology, oncology and more
- Major milestones reached in development of new health and wellness centers in Eastern Travis County: Hornsby Bend (which opened in October 2023), Del Valle and Colony Park
- Expanded addiction medicine and behavioral health programs to address Central Texas’s growing substance use crisis
- More than 57,000 applications processed for Central Health’s Medical Access Program health coverage
“For two decades, Central Health has been transforming how people get care and striving to serve as a model for other systems across the country,” said Dr. Lee. “Today, that transformation continues as we are guided by our goal that healthcare should always be getting better – better for the 150,000+ Central Texans we serve every year, better for our communities, and better for our employees, providers and partners.”
The full FY2023 Annual Report can be downloaded at https://www.centralhealth.net/fiscal-year-2023-annual-report/. Key financial data is also included, showing Central Health’s solid stewardship of public funds while expanding care for Travis County’s underserved residents.