Orlando hotelier Harris Rosen, who nearly three decades ago set up health care for his employees, will soon offer what he calls RosenCare to Osceola County school district workers.
The school district revealed an agreement Monday with RosenCare to oversee its center for employee health starting Oct. 1.
The Osceola deal is the first of its kind for RosenCare, which has been featured in Forbes magazine and on CNN for its focus on preventative care.
Rosen had pitched his health care and brokerage services at a school board meeting just as its three-year contract with its providers was set to expire.
“Those of us in the business have been well aware of what he had done for his people,” said Rick Hensley, the school district’s director of risk and benefits. “This was the right time to try something dynamically different than what had been done. All the pieces fell together.”
The Osceola agreement will establish RosenCare as the administrator of the school district’s employee health center.
Employees had seen wait times and referrals to other providers outside of the district increase, said Apryle Jackson, president of the Osceola teachers union.
“Periodically, our members would be told that they were not at an urgent-care facility,” said Jackson, who said the previous provider had been AdventHealth. “They started to get better when they realized they were losing the contract.”
Officials with AdventHealth were not immediately available for comment.
RosenCare, established in 1991 and nationally recognized for providing health care to Rosen Hotels & Resorts workers and dependents, was initially set up as a response to an expected rise in premiums from the hotel company’s health care provider.
Rosen had been considering converting a small accounting office in what is now Rosen Inn International into a daycare facility.
Instead, he established the medical clinic for his employees there in an effort to reduce his company’s costs by keeping employees healthy.
“Years ago, we received notice of a substantial increase in our annual health care premium, despite the fact that we had a very good year,” Rosen said in an email to the Sentinel. “The trend of increasing premiums was likely going to continue and … we might instead have to do something which some might consider to be somewhat drastic, or perhaps even a bit unusual.”
Rosen is become known in Central Florida for his philanthropic efforts.
He recently celebrated the first graduating class of a preschool he started in the Parramore neighborhood. He has also provided scholarships to students in Parramore and Tangelo Park to attend Rollins College.
“When we were asked to consider a partnership with Osceola County Public Schools, I was personally excited,” he said. “My passion for both education and health care made it seem like a natural fit.”
Rosen Hotels & Resorts, which includes eight Orlando properties, has a 12,000-square-foot medical center on site.
Jackson said the district did not speak with the teacher’s union about the shift before it happened, but added that she’s optimistic about the new arrangement.
Hensley said the plan is to establish multiple sites across the district, which has 7,200 insured employees.
Often, it takes a shift in thinking in the long-established world of education.
“An employer either gets it or they don’t,” Hensley said. “It’s a combination of removing barriers and, at the same time, providing high-quality health care and reducing the cost of doing that.”
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