Navigator - Provider Newsletter from Colorado Access

We partnered with the Denver Health Mobile clinic on a community outreach event last month to provide COVID-19 education and resources to Health First Colorado (Colorado’s Medicaid Program), CHP+, and other residents in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood. The mobile clinic offered vaccinations to those experiencing homelessness as well as Five Points residents that attended the event. We had onsite care managers to offer care coordination services and help process applications for First Health Colorado. We had 26 people show up, and six vaccinations were provided. Resources were given for shelters and motel vouchers, and Medicaid enrollment support was available.

We earned Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) dollars due to performance in reducing the disparity in vaccination rates between members of color and members who identify as white. We are investing $3.1 million dollars back into the provider community to support providers and their COVID-19 vaccination efforts in both Region 3 and Region 5.

We’ve allocated these funds in the following ways:

We designed a hotspotting technique to identify those provider partners located in areas with higher COVID-19 rates. Vaccinating providers in these areas who have been reporting vaccine volume monthly to Colorado Access will receive flat payments for these efforts.
FEMA dollars are intended to reimburse activities that have contributed to increasing the vaccination rates of Medicaid members. Payments based on attribution are being made to all PCMPs who exceed the average State vaccination rate for Medicaid members to acknowledge success to date and support continued efforts. An MOU will follow this payment and recipients of this funding will be required to share qualitative feedback about what is working well as well as any existing challenges. We will aggregate this feedback in our workplan that gets submitted back to FEMA. A survey link will be sent out to capture this feedback in mid-October.

If you have any questions regarding this payment, please contact your provider relations representative directly or call the provider relations team at 844-430-6684.

Colorado Behavioral Health and Wellness Summit

The 2021 Colorado Behavioral Health and Wellness Summit takes place October 26th through 28th. Prior to the Summit, ‘Envision:You’ will host an LGBTQ+ behavioral health provider training session on October 25th. The combined Level 1 and Level 2 training is being offered at a discounted price for Summit attendees. Capacity for this workshop is limited to 30 people. Click here for more information and to register.

Lessons Learned in Telehealth During A Pandemic
Colorado Healthcare Strategy & Management is offering a session on lessons learned in telehealth during a pandemic. The session will take place on Friday, October 22nd from 7:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. Learn more and sign up here.

Free CCTSI Research Ethics Conference
It is time for the 11th Annual CCTSI Research Ethics Conference, this year to be held on Thursday, November 4, 2021 from 12:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. This year’s event, “COVID-19 Research in the News: What Ethical Issues Does This Raise?,” will be a hybrid event. Click here for more information (LINK TO PDF). To register for this event, click here.

Behavioral Health & Wellness Program
Dimensions: Well Body Advanced Techniques, is a behavioral health and wellness training program that will be offered on Wednesday, November 17th through Thursday, November 18th. To learn more and register, click here.

COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy
Join Colorado Access, along with the Colorado Health Foundation, for a training on effectively engaging people who are hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The training will take place on Tuesday, October 19th at 12:00 p.m. Click here to learn more and to register.

Immunize Colorado Education Series
Join Immunize Colorado for their training “Seasonal Influenza: Vaccination, Prevention and Control in the COVID-19 Era.” This training will take place on Wednesday, October 20, 2021 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Click here to learn more and register.

Adolescent Reproductive Health for Primary Care Providers
Join this ECHO series if you are looking to build, expand and improve care to preteens through young adults. Upon completion, you’ll be able to evaluate and manage common conditions in adolescent reproductive health. These weekly ECHO sessions will be held virtually on Thursdays 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. from October 14th through November 18th. Learn more and register here.

Community Events

Communities Against Poverty 2021

Join the Colorado Center on Law and Policy for Communities Against Poverty 2021. This event will be held on Thursday, October 28, 2021 from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Click here to register.

The City of Aurora has created a new economic development program to connect people in the community who are experiencing food insecurity with free meals at local restaurants. If you work with people or groups that could benefit from this program, please contact Frank for more information at 303-739-7272 or email fbutz@auroragov.org.

If you have an upcoming community event that you'd like us to share, please email us.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) advises vaccination providers across the state to offer an additional dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine or the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to moderately to severely immunocompromised Coloradans. This recommendation is specific to those who are immunocompromised and who have already received the mRNA two-dose vaccine series. Additional doses or booster shots are not recommended for any other population. Click here for information from CDPHE and click here for information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“While children are less likely to become severely ill from the virus that causes COVID-19, kids can get and spread the virus, they can get sick, and some have been hospitalized. Some children have even died, though fortunately deaths have been very rare,” says Children’s Hospital Colorado pediatric infectious disease expert Sean O’Leary, MD, MPH. “We don’t want to add to families’ stress, but we do want parents and children to continue to take COVID-19 seriously enough to maintain precautions — including and especially getting all family members vaccinated as soon as possible.” Read more here.