By Ashley McCarty
Champion Media
The Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington School District, in conjunction with non-profit partner PrimaryPlus, said Friday that a new school-based health center is in the works.
Interact for Health, formerly The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, is providing a $310,000 grant to support the school-based health center. The organization has been around since 1997. It currently funds 34 school-based health centers that serve more than 25,000 students annually.
PrimaryPlus will be providing a full-range of comprehensive primary care services to the new health center. Beginning in 1983, its offices have offered family health, women’s health, dental, pharmacy, x-ray and ultrasound, minor emergency care, wellness and occupational medicine, counseling and more. PrimaryPlus operates seven health centers throughout the Ohio Valley region including one in Maysville.
“I began working on procuring a school-based health center for RULH School in the summer of 2017. It has been a long process, but we are very fortunate to collaborate with PrimaryPlus and Interact for Health on a new school-based health center for RULH Schools. The health center will provide medical care to our students, staff, teachers and community,” said Wilkins.
Wilkins said that school-based health centers provide a convenient service that will effectively reduce absenteeism for all stakeholders in the school district. The health center will remove the healthcare barrier for RULH students and enable them to achieve academically, he said.
“This will be a very positive addition to the village of Ripley and a great advantage for our school district,” said Wilkins.
The RULH school district will be providing two existing pre-school rooms in the Ripley Elementary School to create the health center that will serve students and faculty of the school district. The space also provides an outside entrance that will allow the entire community to utilize the health center’s services.
PrimaryPlus plans to staff the health center with an experienced family health nurse practitioner and nurse. Their medical team with also work closely with the school system’s school nurse to create a seamless workflow for those being seen within the health center.
The school clinic will function much like any of PrimaryPlus’ other locations. They will accept most commercial insurances, most Medicaid plans, Medicare and offer their sliding fee program for those that are uninsured or under insured providing up to a 75 percent discount on care based upon application approval.
Construction for the health center will begin soon once plans have been finalized by the state. The project is estimated to take a couple of months to complete. Once completed, parents or guardians will have to complete the necessary paperwork for their child to be seen in the health center. Information regarding that process will be provided at a later date.