We are scratching our head over the recent Osceola County School Board decision Aug. 10 to reconsider an earlier vote related to establishing a health clinic to serve employees and their families.

Instead of only negotiating a contract with North Carolina-based Healthstat over managing a free-standing health facility on Bill Beck Boulevard, the district now also will consider a program offered by a network of local doctors – or some combination of the two plans.

Don’t get us wrong – we agree with School Board Member David Stone that the idea of medical services being provided through a partnership with local health care professionals who would both manage and provide the service is a good one. However, we wonder what happened that this option wasn’t considered initially when the School Board began talking about ways to reduce health insurance costs. Was the most recent plan only considered after the local medical society criticized the school’s plan to pay Healthstat upward of $700,000 for a multi-year contract to manage the clinic?

We also agree with School Board Member Cindy Hartig that it makes good sense to use a local network of doctors who already have offices and resources in place. Why pay the additional costs to modify a building into a clinic. As Hartig said, it would just be a duplication of existing facilities.

Hartig also said the School Board “may have been overzealous in trying to save money and overlooked local opportunities.” We couldn’t agree more.

We also wonder why the district isn’t talking more with other local government entities over consolidation of services. Osceola County government, for example, has as one of its legislative priorities a “satellite” medical clinic in Buenaventura Lakes. Wouldn’t it be great if that clinic would be able to serve School District employees and their families. The same holds for the Osceola County Health Department’s Primary Care Medical Services of Poinciana and facilities it has in both St. Cloud and Kissimmee.

As a side note, it's distressing to know that the federal government has designated Osceola County as a Medically Underserved Area/Population and as a Primary Health Professional Shortage Area. The rate for licensed family physicians in the county is 13.6 per 100,000 population, which is significantly lower than the state rate of 18.5 per 100,000.