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When Maria Barrales' children got sick, she would drive two hours south from her East Los Angeles home to the Mexican border and spend two more hours waiting to cross so she could go to an affordable doctor in Tijuana.
Now, Barrales, who does not have health insurance, can walk a couple of blocks to Garfield High School and see a modestly priced physician at a new health clinic converted from an auto shop on the school grounds.
"This is something so necessary here. A lot of people don't have insurance, and they don't have the means to go to Tijuana," she said in Spanish.
The clinic is one of 14 new "wellness centers" that the Los Angeles Unified School District is rolling out this year at schools in impoverished neighborhoods in an initiative that expands the mission of traditional school-based health centers from treating only students into one that treats the general public, too.
While a smattering of school clinics across the nation have long been open to the public, more are looking to expand their patient base to reap revenue that can subsidize the care often given for free to youngsters as well as fill a dire larger need for community health care access.
"The more folks you're seeing, the more revenue you're generating," said Tracey Schear, who oversees 26 school-based health centers for Alameda County Health Services Agency in Northern California. "We're trying to make more visits reimbursable."
About 1,800 school-based centers, which are usually run by a nonprofit or public health care provider in school-owned buildings, operate across the country. They provide a combination of primary care, mental health counseling, dental and vision screenings, and health education and prevention to youth who may have grown up with few, if any, doctor visits.
Around since the 1980s, school health clinics received a shot in the arm from the federal Affordable Care Act, which earmarked $200 million from 2010 to 2013 to build and equip more centers and expand services. With fewer than half of public schools now employing school nurses, some districts have used the money to add health centers, which have traditionally been located in high schools, at elementary and middle schools and add mental health, vision, and dental care.
The federal funding, though, does not cover operational expenses, and more providers are looking to become financially sustainable in an era of shrinking public money and increasing competition for private donations that typically fund school clinics. Some clinics have closed in recent years.
The National Assembly of School-Based Health Care is now lobbying Congress to appropriate $50 million to help centers maintain their operations, said President Linda Juszczak.
With health care reform approaching, school-community health centers are also ramping up to enroll people in public insurance programs that will become available.
"We're looking at long-term sustainable plans," said Maryjane Puffer, executive director of the Los Angeles Trust for Children's Health, a nonprofit that supports the school district's clinics.
One Los Angeles Unified school center that has served the community for a long time has been successful doing that, she noted.
About four school-based health centers have opened to the general public in California's Alameda County, and two centers under construction at schools in the Oakland Unified School District are being designed to serve the community as well as students.
