Clovis Unified opens health center for employees, retirees

Clovis Unified School District purchased and converted the former ITT Tech building into a professional development and health center for its employees and retirees. Pictured here is the health center’s “welcoming area.” (Daniel Leon/Clovis Roundup)

When ITT Technical Institute on Herndon and Clovis avenue closed in the fall of 2016, Clovis Unified School District jumped at the opportunity to acquire its 25,000 square-foot building with plans to convert part of it into a health center for employees, retirees, and their dependents.

On Friday, Feb. 16, about a year and a half later, Clovis Unified unveiled the 5,000 square foot health center with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

“It’s been at least three, maybe four years that we’ve been talking about this concept,” said Steve Ward, CUSD’s Legislative Analyst. “It’s great to see this service for our employees finally come to fruition.”

Operated by miCare as a full-service facility with eight exam rooms, the health center will provide routine medical treatment and lab services without a co-pay to those covered by the Clovis Unified health plan, which covers over 12,000 employees, retirees, and dependents.

“We offer pretty much anything that your primary care provider would cover in a typical office visit,” Ward said. “For anything that requires a specialist, we would do referrals, but mostly it’s just your general family medicine type of practice. Plus, we have lab services here in house so that makes kind of a one-stop shop.”

With national healthcare costs rising annually by five percent, this is the most recent step taken by Clovis Unified’s 123-member Employee Benefits Committee to lower premiums but at the same time provide the best possible benefits.

“Their role is to provide the best possible benefits with the best possible service at the lowest possible cost, and we talk about all the time how we can do that,” Ward said of the Employee Benefits Committee’s mission. “Sometimes those things are in conflict. To get better benefits, it’s going to be a higher cost. We saw this as an opportunity to fulfill all three of those.”

The other 20,000 square feet of the building will be used as a professional development center for the curriculum instruction and assessment department.

Daniel Leon: A native of Woodlake, Daniel Leon is a recent graduate of Fresno State with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism. Daniel served as Sports Editor at The Collegian, Fresno State’s student-run newspaper, prior to joining the Roundup. Got a story idea? Email him at editor@clovisroundup.com
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