Idaho State University has hired a national consulting firm to study, and price out, the possible purchase of a for-profit medical school based in Meridian .

As political leaders wrestle with the state’s chronic physicians’ shortage, Idaho State has been looking at acquiring the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine for months. But the $100,000 consulting project doesn’t mean Idaho State is on the verge of making a bid, university President Robert Wagner said.

“We are still in the initial exploration phase,” Wagner told Idaho Education News in an interview.

But consultants are on a fast track — and they say they are looking at “the need for a state-owned medical school in Idaho.”

Consultants are getting an independent third-party analysis of ICOM’s fair-market value, and studying “

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