Salud Family Health Center, located at 220 E Rogers Rd., has been working for the past year to catch up on the backlog of colonoscopy patients created by the pandemic. It took on a creative approach to get the job done.
The center had more than 1,400 patients waiting to be seen for a colonoscopy. The community health center used to refer patients to nearby hospitals for the procedure.
In late 2022, Hans Elzinga, a family practice physician at Salud, worked with others at the clinic to create an endoscopy suite inside the Longmont Salud community clinic. The suite consists of three patient rooms and a procedure room.
The suite was a community effort to build, Elzinga said, adding the entire endoscopy clinic was built using donated dollars. The Longmont United Hospital Foundation contributed $50,000 to the construction of the suite along with donations from community members. The suite was designed with the latest in endoscopy equipment, Elzinga said.
This suite is special because Salud serves patients from all over Colorado who are low-income earners and uninsured. The Longmont clinic sees roughly 50,000 patients each year and around 1,500 are in need of colon screenings. Salude Family Health Center is one of 1,400 community clinics in the nation and one of three with an endoscopy unit.
For many, a colonoscopy is expensive and usually skipped in favor of life’s other needs. By providing a clinic outside the hospital setting and at rates that are affordable to most patients, the clinic is saving lives, Elzinga said. It takes approximately 60 colonoscopies to save a life, Elzinga said.
The costs of a scoping procedure at Salud are calculated on a sliding scale based on the patient’s income. The average cost of a colonoscopy for Salud patients is around $200. The “butt savers” program at Salud — a program that allows the community and Salud employees to donate funds — offsets the costs of colonoscopies, Elzinga said.
The Longmont United Hospital Foundation donated an additional $50,000 to the “butt savers” program this year. The donation will allow an estimated 125 people in the community to receive a low-cost colonoscopy.
“Our board, in this foundation is just grateful for the partnership with an organization like Salud. We appreciate the work that Dr. Elzinga and the staff are doing there on behalf of our community. Hopefully, by doing things like this we can bring awareness to cancer,” said Josh Atherton, executive director of the Longmont United Hospital Foundation.
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