Bock: United by a Vision

This article first appeared in the Vail Daily in December 10, 2019.

Since announcing Colorado Mountain Medical’s new partnership with Vail Health in July, we have been working diligently to improve access to high-quality, affordable health care in our community.

United by this intention, three things have served as the guide for our work at Colorado Mountain Medical: improving the quality of care, improving access to care, and finding ways to reduce the cost of care for our locals. I believe it is important for our community to know what we have done so far to address these areas.

Previously, CMM did not have behavioral health specialists in our practice. As the primary care provider, this was a major gap area for our community, since primary care providers are the cornerstone of identification, diagnosis, treatment and referral for all types of health issues.

We are pleased that as of December, we have added five behavioral health specialists to our practice, creating a comprehensive behavioral health team consisting of one psychiatrist and four therapists. Through our partnership with Vail Health and Eagle Valley Behavioral Health, we are committed to helping the community address the behavioral health crisis that exists. We look forward to integrating these services into our practice to ensure we continuously support the need within our community.

At the beginning of November, Dennis Lipton, MD, and Rebecca Adochio, MD, joined CMM. This transition was made possible by the new partnership between CMM and Vail Health. Dr. Lipton brings valuable internal medicine expertise to our primary care team while Dr. Adochio specializes in endocrinology. In addition, CMM has added a new endocrinologist, Gigi Dawood, DO, and an endocrinologist mid-level provider, Sabrina Ste-Marie, PA-C, along with a Certified Diabetic Educator, Annegret Kessler.

These additions will help shorten the wait period for new patients to schedule an appointment. More importantly, primary care physicians and specialists can help you, the patient, identify health concerns early and work towards proactive solutions that improve outcomes and reduce health care spending in the long run.

Through our urgent care offerings, we aim to keep people out of the costly emergency department whenever possible. To support this, we have expanded our urgent care to seven days a week in Vail, located in our CMM office in the Vail Health Medical Professional Building off South Frontage Road next to the Vail Health Hospital. As of Dec. 14, seven-day-a-week urgent care is available in Vail, Avon and Gypsum.

CMM is a comprehensive primary care plus provider. This national advanced primary care medical home model aims to strengthen primary care and allows us to have care managers and referral managers in practice to identify patients with multiple risk factors and follow up with them accordingly. We also have the ability to help patients better manage chronic illness through timely prescriptions, appointments and screenings. It is a holistic approach that strengthens Vail Health’s offerings.

We have found a fantastic partner in Vail Health and its CEO Will Cook. We share a vision, and I appreciate Will’s understanding of the important role physicians play in caring for a community.

These improvements are only the beginning, and we look forward to future opportunities to create a more comprehensive and integrated health care network for our patients.

Brooks Bock, MD, FACEP, is the chief executive officer for Colorado Mountain Medical. To learn more about the changes happening at Colorado Mountain Medical, visit http://www.cmmhealth.com.