FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Denver, CO – The Colorado Academy of Family Physicians (CAFP), representing over 2,700 practicing primary care physicians, residents, and medical students, applauds and supports the new Colorado state grant program for primary care clinics to provide the COVID-19 vaccine at no cost to patients. The $60 million COVID-19 Primary Care Vaccination Grant…
Updated May 26, 2021 The CAFP works hard to be a trusted voice at the advocacy table when discussing health policy in our state. Our efforts to improve House Bill 1232 – Standardized Health Benefit Plan Colorado Option have taken place alongside the advocate community and the medical community because our members understand the benefits…
Dear Governor Polis, On behalf of the undersigned healthcare professionals and organizations, we urge you to maintain the existing Executive Order requiring masks in indoor public spaces. While there will be a time in the near future when masking can be eased, relaxing the mandate now would be premature and could undermine our progress against…
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve replaced our annual Family Medicine Advocacy Summit with our first-ever remote “Week of Action,” beginning Monday, June 1, to advocate for family medicine in Congress. How family medicine responds to the COVID-19 pandemic will shape primary care and our health care system for years to come, and it’s crucial…
The CAFP recently issued a formal letter to governor Polis, where we in part urged him to issue a statewide stay-at-home order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic (we also urged him to take additional actions to safeguard the healthcare workforce through better communications and a greater effort to secure PPE). We are asking for…
The Colorado legislature recently introduced House Bill 20-1349, a bill which will create a public insurance option for the state. As the legislature deliberates on this bill, CAFP supports its tenets, as it enhances primary care and expands healthcare access for Colorado families. Too many Coloradans are struggling to afford the healthcare they need. Families across the state cannot afford the rising…
The Colorado Academy of Family Physicians has joined fourteen other organizations to support HB20-1319, which is a bipartisan measure to end the sale of flavored tobacco products in Colorado. The ban will apply to the sale of flavored e-cigarettes, cigars, menthol cigarettes, other flavored tobacco products, and products intended to be added to cigarettes, tobacco…
As an early adopter of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model of care delivery, Colorado has been at the forefront of practice innovation. While primary care makes up more than half of all medical appointments, in the U.S. we have invested less than 10% of our health care dollars in primary care. This results in…
By Riley Stanton, CAFP Communications and Marketing Intern The manufacturers of opioid painkillers aggressively marketed their products in the 1990s, exaggerating the benefits and downplaying the risks, while simultaneously lobbying lawmakers to make it easier for patients to receive the drugs. Even as the rise in addictions, overdoses, and opioid-related deaths became apparent, the top…
This summer, we took a road trip to visit members in rural northwest and southwest Colorado. We wanted to know more about concerns family physicians in more remote areas may have. Not surprisingly, they share some of the same concerns held by our urban and suburban members; administrative burden and a lack of payment parity…
By Riley Stanton, CAFP Communications and Marketing Intern It was a productive 2019 legislative session, with 462 new bills passed into law. Three of these bills passed into law were CAFP-led. This legislation will invest more money into primary care, offer communication and resolution programs for patients and physicians when an unexpected health outcome occurs,…
By Sarah Martinez, CAFP Policy and Advocacy Intern Last April, Colorado passed HB18-1284 Disclosure of Prescription Costs at Pharmacies, enacting the “Patient Drug Costs Savings Act”. Before this legislation, insurance carriers and their Prescription Benefit Managers in Colorado could maintain contracts with pharmacies that included “Gag Clauses”. These were legal agreements that threatened to punish…