[S]tudents in the Springfield school district have a new way to get to the doctor’s office – the school bus.
Springfield’s schools have partnered with local health network Springfield Medical Care Systems to create school-based clinics offering mental health, health, and dental care. A nurse and a pediatrician visit the district’s schools twice a month for appointments, and four social workers work full time in each of the town’s four schools.
Surveys have identified mental health, dental care, and health care around obesity as top needs in the community, according to SMCS primary care director Lori Twombly. School-based health centers can help in a rural state like Vermont, where families without reliable transportation have long had trouble accessing health care.
“A lot of the barriers relate to just being able to get to the office, so transportation needs. As well as the consistency of a child who has chronic care needs and maybe needs to seen more often, and families having difficulty getting being off of work,” Twombly said.
Springfield superintendent Zachary McLaughlin said schools are increasingly providing social services that were once the state or family’s responsibility. And that hasn’t gone unnoticed by local taxpayers.
“We can’t ignore the need, because other institutions and society aren’t providing what they used to provide. We gotta deal with it. But how the heck do we deal with it? Especially in a time of shrinking budgets,” he said.
The clinics, which have been operating since the beginning of the school year, won’t cost the school budget a dime, McLaughlin said. The district is providing the space, and SMCS covers the cost of the personnel. In fact, two clinical social workers who were once district employees will remain in Springfield schools, but go on the SMCS payroll.
That means services provided through the partnership are billed in the same way as if students were accessing care at SMCS community health centers. The school-based clinics take most insurance, including Medicaid, and charge patients on a sliding scale depending on income.
A consent form was sent home at the beginning of the year for parents to sign, and providers will discuss the price of services – as well as ways to offset the cost – with families before offering care.
Ben Truman, a spokesperson for the Vermont Department of Health, said the state isn’t specifically tracking how many schools are starting school-based health centers. But similar programs exist in Burlington and Winooski schools, he said, and school districts across the state are establishing relationships with local health care providers to set up school-based or linked services.
In partnership with Gifford Medical Center and South Royalton and Chelsea health centers, HealthHUB operates clinics in schools in South Royalton, Strafford, Chelsea, Sharon, Bethel, Tunbridge, Orange, Washington, Stockbridge, Randolph, Rochester and Williamstown.
Truman said there are many benefits to school-based health care.
“What we have seen so far gives us encouragement that these efforts will support our common focus on protecting and promoting the health of our children,” he wrote in an email. “The school/provider partnerships hold promise for strengthened connections to medical homes, and can lead to higher return to class rates, increased attendance, and improved academic achievement.”
