Make Your Voice Heard

Write your Legislator to ensure Coloradans’ health and well-being are prioritized this session!

As a constituent, contacting your Representative and Senator can have a big influence on their priorities and decisions. Just a few letters to their office can bring an issue to their attention and have a critical impact on getting a bill passed.

Make a difference and take action today. Here’s how:

1. Find your Legislator: https://leg.colorado.gov/house-district-map.

a. Enter your address

b. You will then be matched with your Representative and Senator and be shown their email address

2. Copy and paste the draft email below into the message, add your legislator’s name to the greeting.

3. Add a personal touch with information about why you support this bill (optional).

4. Sign it with your name and location and send it to your legislators!

Here are the draft emails to copy and paste:

• SB24-117: Eating Disorder Treatment & Recovery

  Subject: Please Fully Fund SB24-117: Eating Disorder Treatment and Recovery Programs.
  

  As a constituent, I urge you to prioritize funding for SB24-117, Eating Disorder Treatment and Recovery Programs.

  It is estimated that nearly 30 million Americans will suffer from an eating disorder in their lifetime. From 2018 to 2022, eating disorder insurance claims increased 65 percent nationally, with the largest increase in individuals aged 14- 18 and the second largest among those 19-24 years old. Eating disorders have the second highest mortality rate of any mental health condition, just behind that of opioid use disorder.

  SB24-117 will address the lack of oversight of eating disorder treatment facilities and hold these facilities to the same standards as other behavioral health facilities. It is time for these facilities to have appropriate programmatic oversight on issues such as privacy, bathroom policies, room-based care, use of involuntary feeding tubes, and other issues to ensure individuals are receiving high-quality, trauma-informed care. This bill will prevent further trauma and harm to Coloradans seeking treatment for eating disorders.

  • Colorado eating disorder patients say they’ve been subjected to nude weigh-ins, forced to eat non-vegan foods
  • Colorado legislators push to increase regulation of eating disorder clinics amid patient complaints, state probe

  I urge you to support this bill and prioritize $451,908 to fund SB24-117 – the majority of the fiscal note is one-time funding. Your support will not only save the lives of those with eating disorders but enhance their treatment and lifetime recovery.

  Thank you for your consideration.

  __NAME__

  __CITY__

• HB24-1066: Prevent Workplace Violence in Health-Care Settings
  Mental Health Colorado, in partnership with the Colorado Nurses Association and other consumer advocacy groups, have working to prevent and protect our frontline workers from workplace violence. Write a letter to your legislators to ensure funding is prioritize with the Access Code 8244: https://app.coloradocapitolwatch.com/comment/803544824
  
• HB24-1217: Sharing of Patient Health-Care Information

  Subject: Support and Fund HB24-1217: Sharing of Patient Healthcare Information! 

  Dear __Insert Legislator’s Name__,

  As a constituent, I urge you to prioritize funding for HB24-1217: Sharing of Patient Healthcare Information.

  Federal privacy rules, such as the Healthcare Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), are in place to protect the rights of individuals to control how their healthcare information is shared and transferred. However, these federal rules are unclear on how family members and caregivers can appropriately communicate with providers about their adult loved ones.

  This bill clarifies what is allowable and not allowable within the federal privacy laws and regulations to encourage the supportive engagement of families while maintaining patient privacy and preserving the ability for providers to exercise professional judgment. This delicate balance aims to facilitate conversations to improve the care for individuals with health conditions.

  This bill focuses on sharing and disseminating health information appropriately by:

  • Establishing a working group through the Office of E-Health Innovation to explore the feasibility of developing a centralized digital consent repository to allow consent forms to be securely stored and accessible by patients, designated family members, and providers;
  • Creating a “Friends and Family Input Form” as a one-way method of communication for family members and caregivers to relay information about their loved one to providers; and
  • Clarifying how providers and caregivers can communicate within federal privacy laws and regulations.

  Please support and fund HB24-1217 to encourage engagement with caregivers and improve care and outcomes for individuals with health conditions.

  Thank you for your consideration.

  __NAME__

  __CITY__

• HB24-1355: Measures to Reduce the Competency Wait List

  Subject: Please Fund HB24-1355: Measures to Reduce the Competency Wait List! 

  As a constituent, I urge you to fund and sustainably support HB24-1355: Measures to Reduce the Competency Wait List. This bill aims to significantly reduce the increasing competency waitlist that our State is trying to address by connecting individuals with community-based care, support, and health care rather than leaving these individuals to linger in jail waiting for the State to provide restoration services.

  HB24-1355 will create a diversion program that is community-based and supports the mental and social well-being of participants, which will:

  • Include wraparound programming with high-touch case management.
  • Provide individualized support such as mental health and recovery services and housing assistance.
  • Be supported by the Bridges of Colorado, an existing resource already established by the General Assembly.
  • Be subject to District Attorney approval and voluntary participation.
  • Rely on collaboration between multiple agencies.
  • End the ability to route through the competency system for class two misdemeanor offenses and below.

  Colorado has the 3rd largest waitlist of people in the nation being held in jail awaiting a state hospital bed for restoration services (which is emphatically not health care). More than one-third of Colorado’s justice-involved population has a mental health need. Additionally, research has shown that community-based services are less expensive and have better outcomes than in-patient competency restoration. This population deserves community-based support and accessible mental health care, not cuffs.

  • 400 people with mental illness are sitting in Colorado jails. Some state lawmakers want to divert them to treatment instead. 
  • Colorado lawmakers eye $11 million plan to keep mentally ill defendants out of jail, improve state’s competency system

  I urge you  to prioritize and fund HB24-1355.

  Thank you for your consideration.

  __NAME__

  __CITY__