- April 28, 2024
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Plans to provide a walk-in medical clinic for employees of the Flagler County School District hit a hitch when the cost of such a clinic proved higher than anticipated.
The district decided to open the clinic when the School Board opted in __ to switch to a self-insurance plan.
But after staff put out a request for bids for the clinic, they were disappointed with the four proposals they received, said Kristy Gavin, the school district’s attorney, at a Tuesday School Board workshop.
Bids ranged from $436,000 to just less than $1 million annually, Gavin said, an amount that was higher than anticipated. The lowest bid came from MediQuick, which also operates the walk-in clinic for employees of the city of Palm Coast.
Gavin said the $436,000 bid was “roughly four or times higher” than what Palm Coast pays for its medical clinic. The school district would need to serve about three times more employees with its clinic than the city does.
But the city pays about $7,700 monthly for its clinic. The school district expected that it would be paying roughly three times that, or about $24,000, for its clinic. Instead, the bid it received would cost just more than $36,000 each month.
Gavin said she wants to discuss piggybacking off of Palm Coast’s contract to shrink the clinic’s price tag. Another option would be to find a way to utilize a building the district already owns to cut costs.
But with the start of the school year less than a month away, time for negotiations is not unlimited.
“The bid we got is just not viable at this point,” Gavin said. “We’re having a meeting to try to work out a contract.”
