The Estes Park Salud Clinic is facing a looming funding crisis that threatens its future. If a solution is not found for the projected $1 million operating shortfall, the clinic may close May 31, said John Santistevan the president and CEO of Salud Family Health in an interview last week with the Estes Valley Voice.
The dire financial situation is due in large part to significant cuts in eligibility for Medicaid beneficiaries as a result of what the government is calling the post-Covid “unwinding” and “disenrollment.”
Colorado is one of 10 states that has been especially hard hit by the Medicaid disenrollment due to administrative rules about the continuous coverage mandate that went into effect during the COVID-19 public health emergency which officially ended May 11, 2023. Since then, some 575,000 individuals—33% of all people who were receiving Medicaid in the state—have been disenrolled.
In addition, flat Congressional funding for the past 12 years coupled with increases in health care costs—including salaries, equipment, and general inflation—have strained the clinic’s budget to the breaking point said Doug Frisbie, the president of the Estes Park Salud Foundation.
Santistevan will make a presentation about the local Estes Park clinic’s finances on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. during the Town of Estes Park’s board meeting and to explain an aggressive fundraising plan in an effort to buy some time.
The impending fiscal crisis has been of concern for months. In September, Salud invited a constituent advocate from the Ft. Collins’ office of Rep. Joe Neguse and Estes Park Town Administrator Travis Machalek to a roundtable discussion about the clinics concerns.
Since November, the Estes Park Salud Foundation has been working with Jennifer Morse, the vice president of development for the Salud Family Health Centers, to raise $1 million needed to keep the Estes Park clinic open beyond May 31, 2025.
Since the start of the campaign in late December the Estes Park Salud Foundation has received two separate matching fund donations, one for $50,000 and another for $100,000. As of last week, the Foundation has received donations and pledges totaling $200,000. With just a little over four months to go, the clinic hopes it can raise the additional $800,000 needed to keep its doors open.
Other than for the capital fund drive to build the clinic in 2007, Salud has not asked the community for money, said Frisbie, but in light of the current situation, the clinic has no choice, he added.
The Estes Park Salud Clinic provides primary medical care, behavioral health services, dental care, and pharmacy services to some 2,000 medically underserved individuals in the Estes Valley who have limited access to health care.
The loss of the clinic will have a profound impact on the people and the businesses in the community, said Frisbie who hopes the Estes Valley can rally to plug the hole in the dike for 2025. However, a long-term solution must be found to ensure that people who can least afford medical care are not cut off from the primary care safety net, he added.
Salud operates 13 clinics in Colorado in addition to 10 school sites and one mobile unit. While all of the Salud Clinics are dealing with the impact of the Medicaid disenrollment, the larger clinics plan to cut staff and serve fewer individuals in order to remain open and still provide services.
The Estes Park clinic, one of the smallest of the Salud clinics which operates with just one and a half medical providers, one behavioral health specialist, one dentist, and one hygienist, in addition to support staff, can not cut staff and still operate because there would be no one left to provide services, said Frisbie.
And because of the financial situation facing all of the Salud clinics due to the Medicaid disenrollment, the larger clinics are not able to divert funds to help the Estes Park clinic as they have in years past.
Historically, the Estes Park Salud Clinic has had annual losses of $1 million, said Frisbie. If the clinic can raise needed funding, it will buy some time to carry the clinic forward through May 2026. Then over the next year and a half, Salud and the other community health centers across the country will work to lobby Congress to fully fund the centers, correct an inadequate funding formula, and find a new funding model that will include a mix of state, local business, private, and federal funding, said Frisbie.
The non-profit Salud clinics are recognized as Federally Qualified Health Centers, a program established by Congress in 1975 which had its roots in the Neighborhood Health Centers, an initiative of Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. Today there are some 1,400 centers with 14,000 clinic locations across the country providing primary health care to more than 32 million individuals or nearly 10 percent of everyone in the U.S.
To make a contribution to the Estes Park Salud Clinic fundraising effort, click here for a link to the foundation’s website.
Listen to story here on the EVV Podcast:
Estes Park should implement a trophy home tax to help with funding…a tax like that would help meet the towns needs.
Canada and Europe don’t have this problem.
Salud serves a vital role, let’s support them, they do good work for the underserved.
For those concerned with the well-being of immigrants in Estes Park, this is our opportunity to support the underserved and underrepresented.
We can put our money where our mouth is by providing immigrant employees and their children with low-cost medical services. Is there someone in Estes Park talented enough to lead a grassroots effort to raise this money for our low-income population? Quote club, Rotary, influential citizen?