Clearwater City Council Approves CareATC To Operate The Health Clinic

The Clearwater City Council has taken another step toward providing affordable health care to our members by approving CareATC to be the operator of our new employer provided health clinic. For the past several years our Local’s leadership has supported the idea of a health clinic provided by the City as a way to offer primary care medical services and prescriptions at little or no cost to our members. The City has only shown interest in this project in the last two years because of the tremendous increases in costs and the reluctance of the City Council to keep paying more for health insurance premiums. Other cities and counties like Lakeland, Brooksville and Sarasota have already opened clinics and have had great success with them. Too many physicians today are not spending time to know their patients and just have a production line mentality. The clinic staff will be more involved with the patient especially in disease management. The next step is for the City to negotiate the contract for services and bring that back to the Council for final approval. Meanwhile locations will be scouted within the City that will hopefully have the attributes necessary for the clinic operation including the potential for expansion. We are hopeful that we can see the clinic opening by April.