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University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM) Interagency Agreement

In Fiscal Year 2017-2018, The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (the Department) entered into an Interagency Agreement (IA) with the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM) to provide supplemental federal funding for clinical services to CUSOM providers and improve healthcare access for Health First Colorado members throughout Colorado. This Supplemental Funding Program is a unique funding opportunity made possible with strong partnership between the state Medicaid agency (the Department) and the publicly funded academic medical school (CUSOM). 

The goal of the Supplemental Funding Program is to improve access to care for Health First Colorado members through increasing reimbursements to providers when rendering services to Health First Colorado members and creative initiatives focused on population health. The Supplemental Funding Program Teams from the Department and CUSOM analyzed trends and needs from previous program years and selected five priority areas to direct funding and program support. These areas are critical to improve access to care for Health First Colorado members. These priority areas are Specialty Care Access, Evaluation, Community Engagement, Telehealth Innovation, and Collaborative Initiatives.

Priority Area Goals

  • Specialty Care Access - Analyze Health First Colorado Member specialty care needs and develop interventions to support enhanced referral pathways, knowledge sharing and increase access to care. In Fiscal Year 2022, the Supplemental Funding Program focused on access to providers in Dermatology, Rheumatology, and Urology. 
  • Evaluation - Develop and utilize a data-driven framework to evaluate Supplemental Funding investments to ensure the investments achieve the objectives of the Interagency Agreement, promote sound stewardship of supplemental funds and increase access to healthcare. 
  • Community Engagement - Identify community engagement gaps and increase engagement with community partners. For example, in Fiscal Year 2022, the Supplemental Funding Program worked with local organizations to understand what barriers existed to specialty care in the Aurora area. 
  • Telehealth Innovation - Facilitate partnerships to explore opportunities for information exchange, guidance, and dissemination for telehealth with a specific focus in ECHO, eConsults, and telemedicine visits. 
  • Collaborative Initiatives - Define, implement, and evaluate collaborative projects that work to increase access to care and improve outcomes for populations with complex health care needs across the state. Currently, the Supplemental Funding program is focusing on the unhoused and justice involved populations.  The projects focusing on these areas are: 

Fiscal Year 2022-2023

Fiscal Year 2021-2022

Project Resources

For any questions, direct requests or more information please contact:

CU School of Medicine
upl@cumedicine.us

The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing
Lauren Phillips
Population Health Specialist/Project Coordinator
Lauren.Phillips@state.co.us