Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association’s Community Health Center (CHC) is recognizing National Health Center Week 2014 August 10-16. CHCs all over the United States are nonprofit health care providers with a mission to provide comprehensive primary health care you can trust.

CHCs treat your whole family with affordable, personalized care including primary care, behavioral health care, prescription assistance and health screening/education. Our patients are an important part of our team and we are able to get them appointments when they need one. We offer a sliding fee scale based on income and family size and we also accept Medicaid, CHP, Medicare and Private Insurance.

Please join us in celebrating these accomplishments

• VNA’s first CHC opened in Craig in the summer of 2008. In January of 2013, a second CHC opened in Steamboat Springs to provide services for Routt County residents.
• Almost 4,500 people have gone to our CHCs for their health care since the beginning of 2013 with 9,000 medical visits and 840 behavioral health visits.
• All services are offered on a sliding fee scale based on income and family size. Private insurance, Medicaid and Medicare are also accepted. A family of four making less than $47,000 is eligible for a reduction in price.
• CHC providers focus preventing disease and illness before it happens with Diabetes, Cardiovascular, and Cancer Screenings and help with positive changes in behavior like quitting smoking/chewing.
• CHC offers same day and next day appointments for many urgent situations.
• After hours, a bilingual answering service staffed by nurses is available for patients with medical questions and emergency situations.
• To help people determine if patients need to be seen by a doctor immediately, a medical professional (triage) talks to more than 200 people per month. If they cannot manage their condition at home, a same day appointment is made.
• CHC employs 3 physicians (Diana Hornung, MD – Medical Director, Anna Lundeen, MD and Josh Welch, MD), 3 physician Assistants (Julia von Allmen, PA-C, Kim Boyce, PA-C, and Frani Jenkins, PA-C), 1 Nurse Practitioner (Suzanne Holm, NP), 7 medical assistants in addition (via contracts) 3 behavioral health clinicians.

Medical homes are valuable and necessary. When people have a place to go for regular care, they use it and stay healthy. Patients not only get the care they need under one roof, but they are treated as individuals, with dignity and respect. This is what health care should be, and what we celebrate during National Health Center Week. As a Medical Home our staff provides assistance for many areas in our patients’ life.

• In addition to comprehensive primary medical care, our staff assists with referrals to specialty care providers.
• Care Coordinators help our patients make appointments (with specialists and other providers), coordinate how the patients get to the appointment, and make sure that the results of the exam are delivered to the patients’ primary care provider.
• In the clinic, our patients can meet with a Behavioral Health Clinician to address and feelings of depression, anxiety and/or other emotional conditions, which prevent our patients’ from living their life to the fullest.
• Our Health Educators focus on teaching healthy lifestyle with the goal of preventing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity.
• CHC staff assists our patients and their families with enrolling in health insurance and Medicaid if they are eligible for these programs.

Our patients are an important part of our team. This year we have established a Patient Advisory Group, to garner feedback, opinions, and suggestions how we can improve our clinic. Patients have a choice in healthcare providers and Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association’s Community Health Center is continually working to be the Provider of Choice and your Medical Home.

For more information or to make an appointment call 824-8233 or 879-1632 or log onto www.blog.northwestcoloradohealth.org.

By Gisela Garrison, Director of Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association’s Community Health Centers.