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Grants in Action
Colorado Children’s Healthcare Access Program
Objective: To conduct a needs assessment and strategic planning regarding barriers to prenatal care for low-income women.
Impact: For many medical practices there are barriers to accepting patients covered by federal or state health plans, such as lower reimbursement rates and confusing enrollment procedures. Physicians Steve Poole and James Todd established the Colorado Children’s Healthcare Access Program (CCHAP) in 2006 to help children covered by government-sponsored health plans find a medical “home.” With CCHAP’s help, more than 450 health care providers are expanding access to publicly insured children by opening their practices to these patients, or by seeing greater numbers than before. CCHAP also has its sights on another population – the nearly 30,000 pregnant women covered by government-sponsored health insurance at any given time. Dr. Tracy Johnson is conducting a study of the issue for CCHAP. “Children born into low-income families have significantly more health problems,” she says. “It is important to assess whether the current system can provide comprehensive prenatal services to low-income pregnant women who need them.” Rose Community Foundation granted $36,729 to fund the metro-Denver portion of the study.
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Kids in Need of Dentistry
Objective: To provide affordable preventive and restorative dental care to children and youth.
Impact: Children with dental decay suffer in more ways than just feeling pain. According to the Colorado Department of Health, 540,000 hours of school time were lost due to dental problems in 2007. Lacking routine preventive dental visits, some children end up in the emergency room undergoing painful and costly procedures to address decay. Kids in Need of Dentistry (KIND) provides dental care at greatly reduced fees to uninsured children, and sees those covered by government-sponsored health plans, at several clinics and a mobile dental bus that travels the state. KIND also runs a free program called Chopper Topper; in 2008-2009, dental hygienists visited 66 elementary schools to apply sealant to the teeth of second-graders. “We are putting a strong focus on prevention,” says KIND Executive Director Julie Collett. “We want people to be aware that we are here to provide the dental care they need.” In 2008, KIND had 7,400 patient visits.
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- Grant profiles from Rose Community Foundation's 2008 Annual Report
Farther down on this page:
Inside Kids in Need of Dentistry's mobile dental bus
“Sometimes they are teenagers and they’ve never seen a dentist before. They are scared. By the time they get to us, we see a lot of decay.”
– Pam Moore, a certified dental assistant and clinic coordinator for Kids in Need of Dentistry’s mobile dental bus