New online tool helps women on Medicaid find prenatal care and family
planning
[June 07, 2025]
By SOPHIA PAFFENROTH/Mississippi Today
At the University of Mississippi Medical Center, one researcher’s
full-time job for the past nine months has been to find out which
clinics around the state offer different kinds of women’s health care,
and whether they accept various forms of Medicaid.
The final result is a recently launched database aimed at helping women
locate the nearest clinic that can offer the care they need. The work
that went into creating it highlights a pervasive problem: Even making
an appointment can be a barrier that keeps women from improving their
lives.
“We Need to Talk” is a compilation of all Mississippi clinics offering
prenatal care – specifying which ones also offer family planning, and
whether they take Medicaid insurance, Medicaid waivers and see women
whose Medicaid applications are pending. There is also a hotline
designed to give additional support to anyone having questions or
feeling overwhelmed about the process.
“Having gone through the work, it was remarkable. It wasn’t easy to
figure out where you should go for care,” said Dr. Thomas Dobbs, former
state health officer and dean of the John D. Bower School of Population
Health at UMMC, who oversaw the project. “And that should be one of the
most basic bits of information we have.”
The idea was born from the recent 900% increase in babies born with
syphilis, Dobbs explained, which he called a “canary in a coal mine”
signaling more danger to come.
An investigation into the epidemic showed that one of the driving
factors was delayed prenatal care, caused in large part by inaccessible
information and concerns about cost, Dobbs said.
Finding reproductive and prenatal care can be difficult for several
reasons.
For one thing, there are many different kinds of clinics in Mississippi,
making it hard for patients to know what to search for. The list
includes federally qualified health centers, county health department
clinics and private OB-GYNs. Another reason is that many clinics don’t
specify online whether they take Medicaid, much less what their policy
is on specific or temporary Medicaid coverage. Calling doesn’t always
guarantee patients a comprehensive or accurate answer.
The new database is an initiative of UMMC’s Myrlie Evers-Williams
Institute – housed in the Jackson Medical Mall – which is committed to
eliminating health disparities by studying the intersection of health
and social issues. The institute has a clinic on site that practices
what’s called “social medicine,” a key element of eliminating those
disparities, the institute’s executive director Victoria Gholar
explained.
“If you have a patient who has asthma and they’re living in a situation
where mold is in their environment, it will really be hard for them to
get better,” Gholar said. “Or, if we have a patient who has to use an
electronic (medical) device, and their electricity is no longer
available because they weren’t able to take care of their utility bill,
then we try to work with them and connect them to resources that might
be able to help.”
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 The institute employs a wide range
of professionals who work on health from a non-clinical standpoint,
such as researchers, community engagers, social workers and
registered dietitians. It hosts events like food drives and offers
free support from budgeting strategies to meal preparation for those
with conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure.
Aside from knowing what to search for, finding clinics that accept
Medicaid can also be complicated because Mississippi Medicaid
eligibility is constantly changing for a woman based on her age and
circumstance – what kinds of services she’s seeking, as well as
whether she’s pregnant.
Medicaid eligibility in Mississippi is among the strictest in the
nation, with one exception – pregnant women. That means many
low-income women only become eligible for Medicaid once pregnant.
And since an application can take up to eight weeks to be processed,
the chances that a woman in this situation will be able to use her
newly acquired Medicaid insurance in the first trimester are slim.
A law that would cut out this interim period and allow low-income
pregnant women to be immediately seen by a doctor passed the
Legislature in 2024, but was never implemented because of
legislative errors. The policy went back through the Legislature in
2025, passed overwhelmingly again, but is not yet in effect.
Some doctors already see women whose Medicaid application is
pending, and the UMMC tool specifies at which clinics that’s the
case.
Women of reproductive age seeking reproductive health care are also
eligible for leniency in the typical Medicaid stipulations. These
women can apply for a Medicaid family planning waiver, which allows
them to access Medicaid for family planning purposes, even if they
don’t qualify for general Medicaid coverage.
The income requirement for pregnancy Medicaid and the family
planning waiver is a household income of less than 194% of the
federal poverty level, or about $2,500 a month for one person in
2025.
Dobbs, who has been the main point person on the project, said he
hopes the online database is one more resource improving health care
accessibility and women’s health metrics in Mississippi.
“This isn’t about getting patients to UMMC at all,” Dobbs said.
“It’s about empowering patients to be able to get the care they need
where they live.”
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