County pulls grant funding for in-school clinic

An expanding school-based program that provides some medical services may harm practices of Florida Keys pediatricians, Monroe County Commission members heard Wednesday.

Commissioners, seeking more information, withdrew a $68,000 grant to the Florida Keys Area Heath Education Center from a $2 million package of awards to 26 local nonprofit groups. The remaining 25 grants to agencies endorsed by the county’s Human Services Advisory Board were approved.

Dr. Michael Hernandez, a Keys native with a 28-year practice in the Middle and Lower Keys, told commissioners at their Wednesday meeting at the Marathon Government Center that the Keys AHEC program has increased its in-school primary care efforts to the detriment of local physicians.

“I am self-funded and can’t compete with free office space and [public] funding,” Hernandez said, citing examples of patients who skipped appointments after taking advantage of the school-based program that allows nurse practitioners and nurses to provide services to students and family members.

“It’s not just me,” Hernandez said. Other physicians “all feel the same way. We’re all being impacted, more or less.”

Eugene Kyle, Hernandez’s attorney, said leave the county’s partial funding of the in-school program could leave them open for a lawsuit. “If there is a misdiagnosis, the lawyers will have a field day with this,” Kyle said.

Patients of Hernandez said they fear losing an experienced physician who has helped their families.

Commissioner David Rice, a former board member of AHEC, said the nonprofit group “started with a very different role. They have changed their business activities and a few years back, they went into primary-care business.... The basic issue is, should government be in business competing with the private medical community?”

Commissioner Heather Carruthers said the AHEC program seems to offer services to families that could not otherwise afford them. “We need social-service agencies to be funded and out there services to people who need them,” she said.

“Florida Keys AHEC (Area Health Education Centers) offers no-cost primary care at eight different school sites to students” of the Monroe County School District, according to a district website.

Commissioners Sylvia Murphy and Danny Kolhage said they have concerns about the county’s involvement and urged the grant be withheld pending further research. “I’m very, very nervous about this one,” Murphy said. AHEC may be “going above and beyond what was proposed.”

The motion passed on a 4-0 vote, with Rice recusing himself. AHEC funds could be restored after more information is gathered, commissioners said.

This story was originally published October 21, 2017 at 8:07 AM with the headline "County pulls grant funding for in-school clinic."