Background Statement
Founded in 1978, Mountain Family Health Centers is a federally qualified health center (FQHC) system serving Garfield, Eagle, and Pitkin Counties residents on Colorado's rural western slope. Today, 83% of MFHC patients have low household incomes (<200% of the federal poverty guideline), and 42% are uninsured. Sixty percent are Hispanic/Latinx persons.
Mountain Family began in Black Hawk, Colorado, when the area's only physician retired. Citizens formed the Gilpin County Health Clinic, later becoming Columbine Family Health Centers, with clinics in Blackhawk and Nederland. In 1999, a clinic was opened in Glenwood Springs upon community request due to dwindling medical resources.
As it expanded, Columbine became Mountain Family Health Centers, opening clinics in Rifle and Basalt in 2011 and Edwards in 2014. In the same year, the decision was reluctantly made to close the last remaining clinic on the Front Range due to the decreasing need due to the area's changing demographics and establishment of new providers. During this time, Mountain Family also began providing dental and behavioral health services to integrate the provision of health carefully.
Continuing the expansion to respond to community needs, Mountain Family opened its first school-based health center in 2016 in Avon and four more in Roaring Fork Schools in 2020-21. Mountain Family clinics are certified by the National Committee on Quality Assurance as Patient-Centered Medical Homes.
During the COVID-19 crisis, we've remained available to our patients by increasing telehealth visits across all of our pillars of care. In some of the coldest months of 2021, our staff hosted vaccine drives for thousands of our community members. To date, we have given more than 21,500 COVID vaccinations in our community, of which 3,600 were for students. We are proud of the work we accomplished during these unprecedented times and will continue to address the needs of our community no matter the challenges that arise.
In 2023, we opened two new health centers in Eagle County. In January, Avon opened; we created a state-of-the-art integrated health center that replaced our Edwards health center. In August, Gypsum joined our healthcare family, adding critically needed care to an area that historically had few resources for healthcare options.
Mountain Family Health Centers looks forward to the next forty-five years of "Our Family Caring For Yours."