The School-Based Health Center Program is HRSA funding, administered through the Bureau of Primary Health Care, that helps existing Health Center Program grantees—community health centers, federally qualified health centers, and similar organizations—open or expand primary care, mental health, oral health, and substance-use services co-located at a school. A health center must already hold an active HRSA Health Center Program grant to apply; schools and districts cannot apply directly for this funding themselves.
HRSA's FY2026 operating plan allocates $55 million specifically to School-Based Health Centers, part of its broader $1.86 billion Primary Health Care budget. Funded services must be delivered face-to-face or virtually to the health center's own patients at the school site, and grantees can't use the funding to pay for services technically provided on behalf of the school or district—the model extends an existing health center's reach into a school rather than funding the school's own health office. For many rural and low-income school districts, a school-based site ends up being the only reliable point of primary or behavioral healthcare a student can reach without a parent missing work to drive them elsewhere, and a co-located site can surface conditions—vision problems, dental pain, undiagnosed asthma—that otherwise go unaddressed until they start affecting attendance or performance. Most school-based sites operate as satellite locations of a sponsoring health center rather than standalone clinics, which means the same sliding-fee-scale and insurance-acceptance rules that apply at the health center's main site also apply at the school, regardless of a family's ability to pay.
OnMed's partnership with 22Beacon is exploring how a similar model could reach charter-school students (no CareStation is currently active at a 22Beacon site). OnMed does have a verified deployment in an educational setting: the CareStation at South Carolina State University gives students, faculty, and staff convenient, private access to healthcare.
HRSA's FY2026 operating plan allocates $55 million specifically to School-Based Health Centers, part of its broader $1.86 billion Primary Health Care budget. The funding helps existing Health Center Program grantees—community health centers, FQHCs, and similar organizations—open or expand primary care, mental health, oral health, and substance-use services co-located at a school. It does not fund a school's own health office directly.
No. Only existing HRSA Health Center Program grantees—organizations that already hold an active H80 grant—can apply for this funding; schools and districts cannot apply on their own. Funded services must be delivered face-to-face or virtually to the health center's own patients at the school site. Most school-based sites operate as satellite locations of a sponsoring health center rather than standalone clinics.
Yes. South Carolina State University hosts a dedicated OnMed CareStation® giving students, faculty, and staff convenient, private access to healthcare on its campus in Orangeburg, SC. OnMed's partnership with 22Beacon is separately exploring how a similar model could reach charter-school students.
Every term here points to the same gap in healthcare access. See how the CareStation closes it.
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