Do you know who the Student Health Ambassadors are? They are a group of students who promote healthy eating and healthy living, along with promoting the medicines that the Curtis Health Center makes available for students who need them. They teamed up with the Curtis Health Center and are in charge of all things healthy. They represent the Curtis Health Center which is located on the first floor room 116. The Curtis Health Center is for all of Curtis’ students, including ones that don’t have health insurance.  It provides students with physical, mental, dental, and eye care.

Fourteen of the 20 Student Health Ambassadors, two Curtis teachers, and three adults from the Curtis

Health Center joined with other Student Health Center Ambassadors within the tri-state area to meet with New York State senators in Albany. The goal of this trip was to make the Current Medicaid Carve-Out bill permanent. This “carve-out” provided Medicaid reimbursement to school based health centers on a fee-for-service basis since 1995 and is set to expire on October 1st of this year.

On this date, school based health centers will be required to negotiate directly with health care plans for inclusion in their networks and for reimbursement rates. This bill implied full funding from the state for all school based health centers for all insurances including Medicaid. They did this by advocating the importance of school based health centers for students. Making sure this “carve-out” bill becomes permanent is important to ensure that all of the school based health centers in New York State don’t have to close their doors.

Ivelisse Rivera, Curtis High School Student Health Ambassador secretary, said, “ I think it worked because by the end of the day we got State Assembly Member Titone to sign off on the bill.”

Zainab Azeez, an ambassador and junior, said “I enjoyed the trip because it provided us with an incredible opportunity to meet with senators and advocates from New York State. We met with State  Assembly Member Matthew Titone and senator Diane J. Savino.”