300. Physicians

300.992 Returning the Joy of Medicine: Elimination or Mitigation of Administrative Burdens

 

CMS adopt the following policies on administrative tasks to mitigate or eliminate their adverse effects on physicians, their patients and the health care system as a whole, as originally developed and approved by the Board of Regents of the American College of Physicians (ACP) on January 21, 2017.

• CMS calls on stakeholders external to the physician practice or health care clinician environment who develop or implement administrative tasks (such as payers, governmental and other oversight organizations, vendors and suppliers, and others) to provide financial, time and quality-of-care impact statements for public review and comment. This activity should occur for existing and new administrative tasks. Tasks that are determined to have a negative effect on quality and patient care, unnecessarily question physician and other clinician judgment, or increase costs should be challenged, revised or removed entirely.
• Administrative tasks that cannot be eliminated from the health care system must be regularly reviewed, revised, aligned and/or streamlined in a transparent manner, with the goal of minimizing burden, by all stakeholders involved.
• Stakeholders, including public and private payers, must collaborate with professional societies, frontline clinicians, patients and electronic health record vendors to aim for performance measures that minimize unnecessary clinician burden, maximize patient and family centeredness, and integrate the measurement of and reporting on performance with quality improvement and care delivery.
• To facilitate the elimination, reduction, alignment and streamlining of administrative tasks, all key stakeholders should collaborate in making better use of existing health information technologies, as well as developing more innovative approaches.
• As the U.S. health care system evolves to focus on value, stakeholders should review and consider streamlining or eliminating duplicative administrative requirements.
• CMS calls for rigorous research on the effect of administrative tasks on our health care system in terms of quality, time and cost; physicians, other clinicians, their staff and health care provider organizations; patient and family experience; and, most important, patient outcomes.
• CMS calls for research on best practices to help physicians and other clinicians reduce administrative burden within their practices and organizations. All key stakeholders, including clinician societies, payers, oversight entities, vendors and suppliers, and others, should actively be involved in the dissemination of these evidence-based best practices.

(Board action, Sept. 15, 2017)

300.993 H-1B Visas for International Medical Graduates

 

CMS supports the already established process of legal immigration granting H-1B visas to people wishing to further their education and/or careers in medicine.

(Board action, May 12, 2017)

300.994 Physician Rights in Workers’ Comp

 

Board Action 1: Approved increased due process protections that allow providers to fairly challenge adverse credentialing, quality, or service reviews.
Board Action 2: Approved objective review triggers for provider reviews that are written and consistently applied.

Board Action 3: Approved change in Pinnacol’s Network Affiliation Committee to a majority of physicians with the power to make binding recommendations.

Board Action 4: Approved change in Pinnacol’s “Without Cause Termination” policy to make clear that the guidelines providing due process protections apply when disaffiliation involves any Quality of Care or Quality of Service matter, eliminating use of “without cause” contract provisions to circumvent these processes.

Board Action 5: Written notice, investigations, and adverse actions: Approved a change in Pinnacol’s policies to require existing processes provide for written notice and an opportunity for physicians to be heard until Pinnacol has made a determination about taking adverse action.
(BOD-1, AM 2011; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)

300.996 Commitment to Physician Rights

 

The Colorado Medical Society reaffirms its commitment to the principles of the physician as a patient advocate, the right of the physician to peer review and medical staff privileges and the right of the physician to work.
(Late RES-26, AM 2001; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)

300.997 Increase in the Numbers of Primary Care Physicians

 

The Colorado Medical Society encourages the identification and funding for incentives to increase the number of primary care physicians in Colorado, especially in rural areas, with emphasis on improving access to quality health care in those rural areas in general.
(RES-16, IM 1993; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)

300.998 Second Opinions

 

The Colorado Medical Society supports the right of the patient to participate in the selection of the physician to provide a second opinion.
(RES-37, AM 1987; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)

300.999 Definition

 

Colorado Medical Society recommends that the term “physician” wherever used continue to be only applied to persons having graduated from a school of medicine or osteopathy and otherwise satisfied the legal requirements to practice medicine as outlined by the Medical Practice Act.
(RES-16, IM 1979; Reaffirmed, BOD-1, AM 2014)