Colorado public health clinics won nearly $2.5 million in new federal grants to expand school-based medical centers for the poor and underserved, as providers gear up for an influx of new patients under the Affordable Care Act.
The Department of Health and Human Services grants, including $500,000 to Denver Health for its school programs, will pay for capital improvements expanding care to 440,000 new patients nationwide, on top of 790,000 already served, government officials said.
Summit Community Care Clinic will use its $103,000 grant to buy a mobile dental chair and equipment to add an oral-health program for the first time, said school program administrator Erin Major.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in an interview that school-based clinics are a proven way to keep children in school and focused on academics. Duncan has long campaigned for making schools into extended-day centers of every community, offering everything from medical care to nutrition to recreation.
Students tell him that without clinical care, they would stay home sick or drop out altogether.
“It’s a triumph of common sense,” Duncan said by telephone. “I think schools should be the heart of the neighborhood. You’re putting a critical, critical resource right there at the school building.”
Duncan said the $95 million in school-clinic expansions announced Thursday should not be seen as part of the current budget-deficit impasse in Washington, D.C. The money was already allocated in last year’s Affordable Care Act. Health and Human Services has $200 million total for the capital grants before the act’s expansion of insured patients kicks in full force in 2014.
Denver Health will use its $500,000 grant to add a 15th school- based clinic at Place Bridge Academy in southeast Denver, said Dr. Steve Federico, head of Denver Health’s school-clinic program. The school attracts refugees and English learners with little access to medical care.
The school is “shovel ready” to turn an old locker room into a full primary clinic, Federico said, “for kids who have nothing right now.”
School clinics like Summit County’s usually take in students with Medicaid and CHP Plus insurance, and they ask the uninsured to pay on a sliding scale. Common services include immunizations, screenings, treatments for eye, ear and throat infections, and physicals. A handful of school-based clinics across Colorado provide contraception, though policies vary by district.
The other Colorado grants for school clinics include $221,000 for Eagle County School District; $500,000 for Peak Vista Community Health Centers, based in Colorado Springs; $497,000 for Southwest Colorado Mental Health Center in Durango; $462,000 for Metro Community Provider Network in the Denver area; and $195,000 for the University of Colorado Denver in Aurora.
Michael Booth: 303-954-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com
