Kaiser Permanente Colorado and the Colorado Health Institute partner to conduct a first-of-its-kind state-level assessment of the magnitude and characteristics of this issue among primary care providers who serve low income and other vulnerable Coloradans.

Is lack of access to specialty services a problem for patients of your clinic? If you have not already responded, this is your opportunity to describe why or why not. This online survey is designed for medical directors of safety net clinics (including community-funded clinics, family medicine centers [residency programs], federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics) to help identify barriers to specialty care referrals as well as possible strategies for improvement. Other types of safety net providers may be included in future phases of the project.

The survey is administered on-line and consists of 31 questions. It takes about 20 minutes to complete. Results will be shared with survey respondents. Data compiled from the survey will also serve to inform stakeholders and community leaders, and may provide guidance for health care reform implementation. Although much of the survey is quantitative in nature, included are sections that allow you to describe the specialty care access challenges patients face in your own words, and they encourage you to take the time to provide us case examples as appropriate. Note that they will also follow up with a clinic administrator or data manager to ask four short items about patient and visit volume at your clinic.

Statement of Confidentiality

Your participation is voluntary and is critical to our understanding of access to specialty care issues in Colorado. All of your responses will remain confidential. They will combine your responses with the responses provided by others and report results in the aggregate only. They will first gain your permission if citing individual responses or quotations in future publications.

Please submit only one completed survey per clinical site. For example, if ABC Community Health Center operates two clinics, the survey would be completed by the medical director at each clinic. Although the decision of who responds to the survey is at your discretion, they request that it be a clinician (preferably medical or clinical director) who is knowledgeable about clinical referrals at your clinic. Feel free to solicit input from your colleagues to inform your responses to the survey.

Instructions for completing the survey:

To begin taking the survey, click on this link or paste it into your browser:

http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/329822/1d08/

At the end of the survey, click the Submit button.

If you are completing the survey for an additional clinic(s), click on the appropriate link below:

Second clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334254/3153/

Third clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334255/21e8/

Fourth clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334256/19f3/

Fifth clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334257/156e/

They request that you complete the survey by COB on Monday, November 15, 2010 as the results are due to Kaiser Permanente in early December.