CHI Launches Regular Reporting From New Cost Commission

Tamara Keeney

August 25, 2014
Health Care Costs

The first meeting of Colorado’s new Cost Commission on Affordable Health Care (CCAHC) was last Friday and CHI Senior Communications Specialist Joe Hanel was there to capture it. The commission, created by Senate Bill 187 this past legislative session, has been charged with analyzing health care costs and making recommendations on how to control them to the legislature. The first meeting focused on commission members getting to know each other. Bill Lindsay was selected interim chair.

You can find Joe’s tweets from the meeting by following him on Twitter (@CHI_joehanel). Also, be sure to read Joe’s summary of the meeting in his new blog.

Speaking of the legislature, CHI is happy to announce that Rep. Amy Stephens has joined our team as a policy adviser. Rep. Stephens is a Republican state lawmaker who is being termed out of the state legislature after eight years. Read a discussion of a wide range of health and health policy topics between our new advisor and CEO Michele Lueck here.

Later this week, CHI will release a new publication reporting on patient satisfaction among adults enrolled in Medicaid’s Accountable Care Collaborative (ACC). Data come from the ACC Consumer Assessment of Health Care Providers and Systems (ACC CAHPS) – a joint effort between CHI and the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) and the Colorado Health Foundation. A report will provide an overview of the survey and ten key findings.

Watch for the release of the report – along with a blog from lead author Jeff Bontrager, director of research on coverage and access.

In case you missed it from last week, CHI released a number of new tools for monitoring the safety net. They are:

  • An updated database of all safety net clinics around the state
  • Newly updated printable maps of clinics in the metro area
  • New interactive map of Colorado’s safety net clinics that allows users to locate the clinic closest to them
  • A blog from Jeff detailing these new resources

We also released a new Insight from public interest fellow Sara Robbins on mental health and suicide data in Colorado, and the sad connection to Robin Williams. Read it here.