On May 31st of this year, representatives of Hamilton Southeastern (HSE) Schools sat down with IU Health to discuss the contract with the school district providing the employee health center. According to the school corporation’s Chief Financial Officer, Mike Reuter, “That meeting did not go really well.”
IU Health informed HSE that the physicians staffing the school system’s employee health centers would be reassigned as of July 2018, and temporary doctors would be assigned to the health center, at a higher cost to HSE Schools.
The school corporation said there would be a response to that proposal soon once the fee structure was clarified, but soon thereafter, Reuter received a message from IU Health that their contract to provide the HSE Schools Health Center would be cancelled with the closure of the facility set for September 2nd.
The contract between IU Health and HSE was set to expire at the end of 2018, with Community Health likely to pick up the health center contract beginning January 1, 2019. The current IU Health contract allows either party to cancel with 90 days notice.
According to Reuter, IU cited a non-solicitation clause in the pact. Reuter told the school board he did reach out to the IU doctors at the health center in March, telling those physicians the contract with IU was not being renewed due to any lack of service on their part, in fact, school officials have been very pleased with the service the IU doctors have provided. Reuter told the board he explained to those doctors “if you want to have a conversation we would be willing to sit down and have that conversation.”
Reuter said he didn’t offer the doctors any jobs because he doesn’t work for Community Health and cannot offer any jobs. IU cited that contact from Reuter to the health care physicians as a violation of the non-solicitation clause of their contract.
“But the reality is, we would’ve probably cancelled (the contract) anyway,” Reuter told school board members, “because there would be no reason for them to bring in temporary doctors, us pay them more, and (the health center) would be no different than a Med Check at that point.”
School officials have talked to Community Health about providing services between September 2nd and December 31st of this year. Community is scheduled to open an employee health center for HSE Schools January 1, 2019, pending final contract approval. Reuter says moving up the opening of the Community Health Center may not be possible, but administrators are trying to work out stopgap measures to provide health services from September 2nd to the end of the 2018 calendar year.
The new pact with Community Health should be ready by the next school board meeting June 27th, that will include the health center and taking over the nursing program in the school buildings. Nurses would switch from being HSE School District employees to employees of Community Health. That change would happen in the 2019-2020 school year.
Several HSE School nurses spoke in opposition of this proposal when it was first discussed at a school board meeting, but no one chose to speak at Wednesday night’s session.
School officials say having Community Health take over the nursing program in the school buildings will save the school corporation $4.6 million over four years.
Also, Methodist Sports Medicine is proposing to continue sports medicine services July 1, 2018 through June 30, 2019. Methodist would no longer provide strength coaches, requiring the school corporation to provide that service.
“It feels like (IU Health) is thumbing their nose and saying, we’re done with you guys,” said HSE Board President Matt Burke. “It’s as though IU is saying, we don’t want to work with you anymore.”