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The Chief Health Officer says if the program is cut, hundreds could lose access to medical care.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The City of Jacksonville’s Chief Health Officer is raising concerns about the future of Healthlink Jax, a pilot program that gives free health services to Jacksonville residents without insurance.
Dr. Sunil Joshi says if the city council’s finance committee’s budget cuts are approved in September, the program will go away, and thousands of residents could be at risk of losing access to medical care.
“Healthink Jax is a way for us to keep uninsured people out of the emergency room for relatively minor health related issues, because a lot of people who don’t have health insurance also don’t have a primary care doctor so they go to the emergency room as their source of primary care,” Joshi said.
The program uses telehealth to provide patients with initial screenings, freeing up time and resources for the local emergency rooms. But it also saves tax payers millions of dollars in spending.
“The taxpayers are spending $56 million a year that goes to University of Florida here in Jacksonville for uncompensated indigent care,” Joshi said. “That is an unsustainable way to manage, you know, tax dollars and so we need to figure out a way to save money, keep people out of the emergency room, keep people out of UF health so that they can see private health insurance patients at the same time.”
According to their numbers, from July of 2024 to July of 2025, Healthlink Jax has answered more than 5100 calls, scheduled more than 1300 physician visits and avoided more than 8 million dollars in medical spending.
“If we can one, have more people sign up for health insurance, two, keep these folks healthy and out of the hospital and figure out a way to divert the emergency room visits for them, how are we losing?” Joshi asked. “How are we losing when we could be talking about saving millions and tens of millions of dollars over time by simply investing in these programs.”
Healthlink Jax is a free program open to Jacksonville residents who don’t have insurance. If you are in need of their services. You can call, 904-925-CARE (2273) or go to the Healthlink Jax website.
