By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Tuesdays election results ensure that implementation of Obamacare will proceed on a fast track in Colorado and Democratic lawmakers want to move ahead with Medicaid expansion that could bring health coverage to nearly a quarter million low-income Coloradans. We would like to push to get health care to as many people as possible because thats going to reduce the costs for everyone, said Rep. Mark Ferrandino, D-Denver, who is expected to take the reins of the Colorado House in January after Democrats recaptured control of it on Tuesday. Gov. John Hickenlooper is more circumspect. While he…
Category: Public Health Issues - Part 17
By Gretchen Hammer The experience of military service can have a profound impact on a veterans life. I have listened as the veterans in my family recount with pride their service to our great country and with pain some of the difficult experiences of combat. The sacrifices they and our family made are real, and a real testament to their commitment to our country. As we come together to celebrate Veterans Day it is important that we consider how we might repay this commitment with a promise of our own: The promise of access to high-quality, affordable health care. Understanding…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon An experiment to ensure that complex Medicaid patients have a regular doctor and care coordinators who can help them stay healthy has saved Colorado an estimated $20 million in its first year, according to a new report from Colorados Medicaid managers. Were very happy that its moving in the right direction, said Laurel Karabatsos, director of health programs for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF). So far, about 20 percent of Colorados more than 600,000 Medicaid clients are enrolled in the program called the Accountable Care Collaborative (ACC). Our goal over the…
By Ned Calonge This week we saw the first presentation of the Colorado All Payer Claims Database, a project of the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC) that is jointly funded by the Colorado Health Foundation and The Colorado Trust. We at The Trust believe that the claims and costs data collected through the APCD, as well as specific measures of quality, will provide an essential missing part of the spectrum of data needed to inform health care decisions by business leaders, policymakers, providers, payers and, of course, health care consumers. The Affordable Care Act goes a long…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon An MRI on your knee in Colorado could cost as little as $297 or as much as $1,261 depending on where you get it, according to the first release of health data from a powerful new tool aimed at improving health, bringing down costs and improving the quality of care. On Thursday, Colorado became the 12th state in the nation to unveil an All Payer Claims Database (APCD) with the debut of www.cohealthdata.org managed by the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC). So far, the database includes about 40 percent of health data from…
By Cathy Alderman Women pay attention: your health is on the ballot this fall. In every race, voters will choose either to continue moving forward towards equality or to wind the clock back on womens health. We have the choice between candidates who support a womans right to access birth control and candidates who oppose it and in many cases want to ban abortion out-right with no exceptions for rape or incest. Your vote is more important than ever. Who you elect will steer our state down the path they think is best. Womens access to affordable health care is…
By Michele Lueck As the Colorado Health Institute observes its 10th anniversary this year, we are spending a bit of time looking back but much more time thinking about the future of health care in our state. CHI was founded in 2002 to address a gap in sound health policy data and analysis, particularly independent and impartial information. Today, the need for reliable data and research has never been greater as leaders in the public, private and nonprofit sectors work to transform Colorado’s health care system – an increasingly costly system that isn’t working as well as it should for nearly…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon The woman is missing most of her teeth, but grins like a 6-year-old at a birthday party. Unsteady on her feet, the 48-year-old homeless woman nonetheless proudly describes the meaning of the famous Emanuel Martinez mural outside Denvers La Alma Recreation Center. The young Chicano man is the future. The Indian is our past, says Gina Marie Crespin, who grew up in the Lincoln Park area and now spends her days in the neighborhood park. The eagle is power, Crespin says, pointing to the center of the mural where the soaring birds wings spread to form…
By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon Frequent flyers at hospital ERs sought emergency care at least four times a year and accounted for anywhere from 11 to 40 percent of total emergency room visits around the U.S., according to seven new studies unveiled this week at the annual meeting of the American College of Emergency Physicians in Denver. In one of the studies, researchers in San Diego identified a group of super users, each of whom visited an ER 21 or more times in a single year. These patients bounced from hospital to hospital. While they represented just .2 percent of all…
By Rebecca Jones of www.EducationNewsColorado.org Its not like the Sanford School is overrun with drugs and alcohol. Its more like its overrun with nothing to do. The school, in the community of Sanford in rural Conejos County in southeastern Colorado, is many miles from the amenities of larger places and, other than sports, extracurricular activities for its 350 students are limited. Resources for its teachers are limited as well. Its exactly the kind of place where Elaine Belansky, a University of Colorado Denver assistant professor in community and behavior health, could find fertile ground for testing a project designed to…