Health Care Reform: School-Based Health Centers Can Promote Access to
Care (Letter Report, 05/13/94, GAO/HEHS-94-166).

GAO's work suggests that school-based health centers--facilities located
on a school's grounds that provide preventive, medical, and mental
health care services to students--do improve children's access to health
care.  The centers can help to overcome financial and nonfinancial
barriers that now limit access, including the lack of health insurance,
transportation difficulties, and insufficient attention to the needs of
adolescents.  School-based centers around the nation face a common set
of problems.  For example, centers lack a stable source of funding, do
not always have enough resources for meeting their patients' health
needs, and have difficulty obtaining reimbursement from public and
private insurers.  They also face problems recruiting and retaining
appropriately trained staff.  Furthermore, local debates over the
appropriateness of reproductive health services in these centers have
hampered their ability to meet some adolescents' health needs. Federal
health care reform that increases access to insurance coverage could
alleviate some of the centers' problems.  However, reform that expands
the role of managed care networks may worsen financial problems because
of the reluctance of these networks to reimburse centers.

--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------

 REPORTNUM:  HEHS-94-166
     TITLE:  Health Care Reform: School-Based Health Centers Can Promote 
             Access to Care
      DATE:  05/13/94
   SUBJECT:  School health services
             Children
             Health care cost control
             Community health services
             Health services administration
             Health centers
             Health resources utilization
             Disadvantaged persons
             Health insurance
             Birth control services
IDENTIFIER:  Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment 
             Program
             HHS Family Planning Program
             California
             New Mexico
             New York
             Medicaid Program
             Health Security Act
             Clinton Health Care Plan
             National Health Care Reform Initiative
             
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