Gov. Rick Scott's Solantic Walk-In Urgent Care is no longer Rick Scott's... or Solantic Walk-In Urgent Care.
Scott founded the chain of health care clinics in 2001, and sold it in 2011 amid cries of conflicting interests. The company announced yesterday that it will be changing its name to CareSpot Express Healthcare to, as a release states, "represent improvements the company is making to deliver a more convenient and better healthcare experience."
In other words: "CareSpot" sounds pretty friendly. "Solantic" sounds like a corporation out of an Asimov story.
All 29 Solantic centers in Florida -- including more than half a dozen in Broward County -- are set to be remodeled and renamed by October.
The company also announced 150 new jobs, expanded online services and a streamlined electronic records system. Solantic is doing pretty damn well under the Scott administration.
Scott technically transferred his $62 million stake in the company to a trust in his wife's name days before taking office and said that was enough to mean, in his words, "I'm not involved in that company." But critics pointed out that his family still stood to profit from the company's success -- and legal experts said Florida's ethics laws totally allowed for the company to get state contracts.
So when Scott started pulling for legislation that could help Solantic, such as changes to Medicaid and the drug testing of Medicare recipients and state employees, folks cried foul -- including a group in Key West that said it was going to mail Scott a jug of urine.
After an ethics complaint was filed with the state, Scott filed to sell his shares in April 2011, and the deal was done last June.
