Mountain Family opens new clinic in Avon’s Chapel Square
With a bigger and more central space, the organization is expanding access to affordable dental, medical and behavioral health care
Ali Longwell/Vail Daily
Mountain Family Health Clinics’ new location in Avon’s Chapel Square is officially open to patients.
The clinic — which relocated from its Edwards location — will provide affordable dental, medical and behavioral health services to the community.
Mountain Family started providing health care services in Colorado’s mountain communities in 1978. In 2014, the organization opened its first clinic in the Eagle River Valley in Edwards. And since then, Mountain Family has been aiming to grow its services, sites and care delivery model in the valley, according to Ross Brooks, the CEO of Mountain Family.
“There’s about 7,400 low-income folks (defined as those living below 200% of the federal poverty level) in the Eagle River Valley that lack access to affordable care. That’s really our target, we’re aiming to serve those folks,” Brooks said.
In total, around 10,000 meet this income designation in Eagle County, and the vast majority are either uninsured, underinsured or covered by Medicaid, Brooks said.
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“The expansion of the Avon Clinic last month allows us to serve up to 4,000 people a year,” he added.
There are several aspects of the new space that will allow it to expand access and services.
First is the space itself. Not only is the new space in Avon — which was formerly home to Vail Health’s urgent care — about 65% bigger than its former Edwards clinic, but Vail Health is providing subsidized rent to Mountain Family for the next five years.
Second is the location, which is more centrally located and on a bus line, making it more visible and easier to access.
“We were just in a really funky, hard-to-find location before, and the things that the team was able to do in that limited space was incredible,” said Amanda Canete, the Avon clinic’s practice director. “I’m really excited about the possibilities, about the access, about having windows. It’s a beautiful space, and I’m really excited about the things that we’re going to be able to do, where this puts us in the community and how we’re going to be able to expand, watching all of this happen.”
Already, Mountain Family is seeing these benefits come to fruition. After opening to patients in early January, it saw around 500 patients in its first month, Brooks reported.
Canete added that the added visibility has already led to a nearly 5% increase in walk-ins during the clinic’s first weeks open.
Integrated, equitable care
Mountain Family Health Centers/Courtesy Photo
Mountain Family operates based on an integrated care model, providing family medicine, geriatrics, pediatrics, OBGYN care, behavioral health, dental, pharmacy and outreach and enrollment services in the Avon clinic.
“Our heart, our head, our mouths, our minds are all part of one person, so we have integrated care to be able to serve the entire human being,” Brooks said.
Canete added that this includes helping patients with other social determinants of health such as housing, transportation, food and the many other things that “make it difficult to live up here.” To help its patients meet these other needs, it leverages its community partnerships.
Plus, its mission is to provide these services in an affordable and equitable way.
Today, 40% of its patients are uninsured, and so the organization provides discounted care on a sliding fee scale based on the ability of patients to pay.
However, providing equitable care includes assisting not only with the cost of care, but also increasing access to bilingual services and building a cultural competency around care, Brooks said.
“More than 60% of our staff are bilingual in Spanish and English, and that’s because more than 50% of our patients are better served in Spanish than English,” he added.
Part of this also includes partnership and outreach within local schools to increase familiarity with the next generation around health care, Canete said.
“We want to really focus on in the next couple of years so that they are growing up having health care part of their normal routine,” she said.
As Mountain Family looks ahead to continue this growth in the Eagle River Valley, it is also on track to open a Gypsum clinic later this year.
“Given the expanse of land and snowstorms and limited highways between kind of the Avon-Edwards-Vail area and the Gypsum-Eagle-Dotsero area, that’s been really important to have two physical locations on both sides of Eagle County,” Brooks said.
By increasing capacity and growing in Eagle County, Mountain Family’s aim is to serve more individuals and make its local presence known.
“I’m most excited about finally having this huge presence in the middle of a very inhabited area to be able to say we’re here and there’s a lot we can do,” Canete said. “I’m really excited to kind of be a bigger part of the conversation in Eagle County.”
To learn more about Mountain Family and its Avon clinic, visit MountainFamily.org.
