In Jefferson, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, the path to healthcare often starts long before a doctor’s visit. It starts with a question: Do I have insurance coverage, and if I do, how do I use it? At Doctors Care, that question is treated as a vital part of care. Through a growing partnership with Intermountain Health Lutheran Hospital, more people are finding insurance and a clearer way to navigate the health system.
Doctors Care is a safety-net clinic offering primary care, behavioral health, reproductive health services and care coordination—support that can include helping patients connect to specialty care, respond to emergency visits, and access other resources. What makes Doctors Care distinctive is how deliberately it treats insurance coverage as part of the care journey.
Housed within the clinic, the coverage team looks for opportunities to identify people who are uninsured and might benefit from help. That can happeBy working with current patients, or when community members contact the clinic directly. The team screens individuals for Medicaid and CHP+, and for private plans through the Connect for Health Colorado Marketplace.
For roughly 16 years since the Affordable Care Act began, Doctors Care has served as a certified enrollment center through Connect for Health. Over time, the work has expanded beyond applications. As policies shift, the community needs plain-language education as much as it needs help with paperwork. Doctors Care built its Coverage Program to deliver both.
“The program runs in two coordinated streams,” said Laura Elena-Porras, Health Policy and Coverage program director at Doctors Care. “The enrollment team handles applications and ongoing case management, which includes everything from renewals to uploading verification paperwork that can determine whether coverage continues. Alongside them, an outreach team of community ambassadors brings health insurance literacy into everyday spaces where trust is easier to build.”
Doctors Care trains ambassadors on coverage options and policy changes, then equips them to teach others what those changes mean in real life. Ambassadors host health insurance literacy classes and attend resource fairs and health events.
Each ambassador provides two literacy classes a month, plus additional outreach touch points. This can be done through tabling at a community fair or hosting a class inside a school, often through partnerships such as parent engagement programs with Jefferson County Public Schools. The model works because it removes intimidation. For many families, it’s easier to ask questions in a familiar community space than to walk into a medical office and start from scratch.
Last year, the team served about 980 clients. Because Medicaid applications can happen year-round, and life changes don’t follow a calendar, the work doesn’t pause after open enrollment ends. Instead, the program stays open, helping people troubleshoot documentation, verify eligibility, and keep coverage from lapsing.
A recent client captured the stakes of coverage work in a changing policy environment. A community member who had previously enrolled in a Connect for Health Colorado plan saw a dramatic shift when policy changes took effect. The premium and deductible structure that had been manageable became unattainable, jumping from a low monthly premium and low deductible to a plan costing hundreds per month with a much higher deductible.
For someone managing chronic conditions, the loss of affordable coverage wasn’t just a financial problem; it threatened continuity of care for that client. Doctors Care worked to find a path forward, ultimately transitioning the client into a charitable coverage option so treatment could continue. It was a reminder of the program’s promise: Even when traditional pathways close, the team looks for alternatives—and helps people connect to sliding-fee clinic care when insurance isn’t an option.
“The partnership between Doctors Care and Lutheran Hospital grew out of a community coalition: the Healthy Jeffco Alliance,” said Chuck Ault, Intermountain Health Community Health program manager. “In 2025, partners formed a committee to create health insurance literacy materials that answer practical questions many people never get taught: When should you go to primary care versus urgent care versus the emergency department? What happens when the emergency department becomes the default option for non-emergencies?”
Ault said those questions shape costs, access, and outcomes for the entire community whether they’re insured or not.
Doctors Care was already teaching insurance concepts in its literacy classes. Lutheran saw an opportunity to amplify that education. That shared focus—helping people understand the “why” behind the right site of care and the value of a consistent primary care provider—became the foundation of a deeper collaboration, he said.
Last year, Lutheran Hospital gave Doctors Care $20,000 for its Community Ambassadors Program and $12,000 for behavioral health. For more information, visit DoctorsCare.org/enroll, or call 720-458-6185.
