Local clinic receives $245,000 grant
By Jeremy Heiman
Special to the Post Independent
Mountain Family Health Center in Glenwood Springs will be awarded a grant of approximately $245,000, the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy announced Thursday.
The grant, funded with tobacco suit settlement money, is one of five to be distributed this year by the department. The state-level grant program was established in 2001 to fund medical services to individuals who have no health insurance and are not eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Basic Health Plan.
“We’re very proud and very pleased,” said Dave Adamson, director of Western Slope operations for Mountain Family.
“We’ll probably add more medical staff. We’re looking for another physician now,” Adamson continued. “But this will enable us to see more patients with the staff we have.”
Adamson said a total of 28 applicants competed for the grant money, and he’s grateful that Mountain Family was one of those selected. He said grant administrators were impressed with the way the clinic is supported by a combination of local governments, foundations and nonprofits, as well as with the quality and range of services provided.
“It’s really a unique community collaboration,” Adamson said.
Glenwood’s Mountain Family Health Center, which will celebrate its fifth birthday later this year, provides a full range of medical care throughout the life span of the patient, for the poor and the uninsured. Mountain Family Health has clinics in several other Colorado communities.
The clinic, which saw 4,000 patients and had a total of 14,000 patient visits last year, is in the process of a major expansion, Adamson said.
Mountain Family is also in the process of a merger with Healthy Beginnings, a 10-year-old clinic that provides prenatal care to local uninsured women.
The funding will enable Mountain Family to provide medical care to an additional 1,000 indigent patients per year and help support prenatal services to 400 women now served by Healthy Beginnings.
The clinic, located in the former Glenwood Medical Associates building west of Valley View Hospital, now has seven examining rooms. When a renovation project is completed, the clinic will move downstairs to a new space with 16 exam rooms.
The grant money will help pay for the expansion, and also for new equipment for Healthy Beginnings, which will be changing its name to Mountain Family Prenatal Program, Adamson said.
Mountain Family now has three physicians, a physician’s assistant and a family nurse practitioner on its medical staff. Most of the staff is bilingual. Healthy Beginnings currently has a staff of three.
Other Department of Health Care Policy grants will go to the Denver-based Colorado Coalition for the Homeless (up to $250,000), Marillac Clinic of Grand Junction (about $318,000 in two separate grants) and the High Plains Community Health Center in Lamar ($91,000).
Contact Jeremy Heiman: 945-8515, ext. 534
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