Priorities
Where the People First Alliance is focused.
Three areas of policy work, drawn from where Colorado's behavioral health system most needs attention. Each is a multi-year effort developed across sectors — not a campaign, not a single bill.
System accountability
Ensure every rule, contract, and dollar is accountable to outcomes for Coloradans.
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Integrated Care
Align behavioral and physical health so people don't fall between systems.
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Equitable Care
Make care reach everyone it's meant to — regardless of geography, language, or circumstance.
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Our Work
How we turn priorities into change.
These priorities aren't a wish list — they're a multi-year program of work. The People First Alliance convenes providers, payers, and advocates, partners with state agencies, and builds reforms designed to outlast any single budget cycle or administration. If you care about a behavioral health system that actually serves Coloradans, there's a place for you in it.
Get involvedA system accountable to outcomes for Coloradans.
The People First Alliance believes every rule, contract, and dollar should answer one question: is this actually helping people? That means consolidating duplicative programs, rewarding providers for effective care rather than organizational survival, and building reforms reliable enough to outlast any single administration. Our measure of success isn't market share or revenue. It's whether people get what they need.
Strategies in this pillar
Specific work the People First Alliance is pursuing in coordination with state agencies and member organizations.
Reward providers for delivering effective care — not for maintaining programs that exist to exist.
Consolidate duplicative behavioral health programs and funding streams across state departments into one coherent approach.
Build reforms reliable enough to outlast any single budget cycle or administration.
If our data can't tell us whether people are getting better, we're measuring the wrong things. The system should be accountable to outcomes, not activity.
AllHealth Network
Integrated Care
Integration means looking beyond a diagnosis to the whole person — the relationship between mental health and physical wellness, the role of social support, the stigma that keeps people from seeking care at all. For too long, Colorado's systems have operated as islands of isolation. The People First Alliance is working to connect those islands instead — aligning payment, management, and access so that care wraps around the person, not the other way around.
Strategies in this pillar
Specific work the People First Alliance is pursuing in coordination with state agencies and member organizations.
Advance the alignment of payment and management approaches across physical and behavioral health care — aiming to simplify access to care and increase the efficiency of service systems
Analyze the opportunities to further align physical and behavioral health through the RAEs, BHAOs, and commercial insurance
Identify the situations and approaches where expanded use of managed-care principles can improve access and quality — and work with advocates, legislators, and other stakeholders to implement those principles thoughtfully
For too long we've treated people in pieces — their mental health here, their physical health there, their social needs somewhere else entirely. Integration means finally treating the whole person.
Paragon Behavioral Health Connections
Equitable Care
The system should work for the person standing in front of it, regardless of their circumstance. Too often it doesn't — because of where someone lives, what language they speak, whether they can physically access a location, or the stigma they encounter when they ask for care. The People First Alliance believes the system should meet people where they are. We're working to align incentives, financing, and policy around one goal: care that reaches everyone it's supposed to reach.
Strategies in this pillar
Specific work the People First Alliance is pursuing in coordination with state agencies and member organizations.
Align incentives and financing so care reaches rural and underserved communities — not just population centers.
Expand language-accessible and culturally-specific services, including Spanish-language peer support and case management.
Reduce the stigma and structural barriers that keep people from seeking care in the first place.
Geography, stigma, language barriers — these aren't edge cases. They're the everyday reality for too many Coloradans trying to access care. The system should be built around that reality, not despite it.
Servicios de la Raza
Stay Informed
Follow the work.
An occasional briefing on what the People First Alliance is publishing, what's moving in Colorado, and what we're paying attention to. For aligned organizations interested in a conversation about membership, the path is over there.
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