CMS Annual Meeting programming

Friday, July 15, 2016 08:41 AM

Explore the biggest issues facing medicine today

by Staff report

This September, Colorado physicians will come together as a community in Keystone for the first annual meeting absent a House of Delegates governance process to engage the experts – state and national – across the most pressing subjects of immediate relevance and concern to our medical community. A dedicated one-time physician work group built the agenda from the ground up, drawing from a statewide physician survey of what is keeping medical professionals and your advocates up at night, and a methodical series of interviews and conversations with peers.

An impressive lineup of speakers will give you insider’s knowledge you can’t just pull off the web, and our workshops bring the biggest issues down to an intimate scale. Plus, we will employ real-time straw polling to get your opinions on all the hot topics to share directly with your board of directors. You are more than an attendee at this annual meeting; you’re an integral part of our network.

It all begins following the exhibitor reception Friday evening, Sept. 16, with a panel discussion: The Ins and Outs of ColoradoCare: Implications for Providers. ColoradoCare is a proposal to create universal, government-run health care in the state, that will be on the November election ballot as Amendment 69. “ColoradoCare would be a massive change in Colorado’s health care system,” said speaker Michele Lueck, president and CEO of the Colorado Health Institute. “No other state would have a system like ours. The election could be close, and doctors need to know how to separate fact from speculation when it comes to this amendment.”

Other speakers include Sen. Irene Aguilar, MD, D-Denver; Cody Belzley, policy director for Coloradans for Coloradans: No on 69; Michael Cooke, representative of the Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce; and Benjamin Kupersmit, president of Kupersmit Research.
“Physicians attending this panel discussion will gain deep insight into the potential benefits and drawbacks of Amendment 69 from a wide range of perspectives, and will be among the first to review the results of member polling,” Kupersmit said. “Frustration with the current delivery and funding system is at a boiling point; is ColoradoCare the answer physicians are looking for?”

Saturday morning begins with a humorous and fast-paced presentation: Physician Heal Thyself, presented by Mary LoVerde, who served on the faculty of the University of Colorado School of Medicine for 15 years as the director of the Hypertension Research Center. You’ve organized, prioritized and delegated. You’ve made friends, linked in and have clout. You’re a veteran of the time-management wars, fighting for the life-balance ideal – and you’re losing! LoVerde’s presentation will teach you a new work-life balance approach. You’ll leave armed with “works in real life” ideas for staying connected to what matters most.

Following the keynote are concurrent workshops. LoVerde will lead a presentation titled: I Used To Have A Handle On Life But It Broke! “Most of us feel that the only way to manage the mounting chaos in our lives is to take control. If only we could get a handle on life! No wonder we have overwhelming to-do lists that leave us feeling exhausted and powerless,” LoVerde said. In this heartwarming and funny program, you’ll learn straightforward, innovative techniques for keeping balance no matter what comes up and will leave armed with ideas that work in real life and can be implemented immediately.

A corresponding workshop on physician wellness will be led by the CPMG Section, “Yeah, But…” Organizational Challenges in Physician Wellness. It will focus on how to implement the language, metrics and return on investment that make business and operational sense for physician wellness, and how to get buy-in for culture change for physician wellness.

Interested in another topic? Our other workshops span a wide range of issues:
• Dangerous Patient Encounters, with Michael Victoroff, MD.
• Avoiding the Pitfalls of Opioid Prescribing, with Abigail Anderson, MD. Managing a patient’s chronic pain is complex. Anderson will discuss the latest recommendations for opioid prescribing and teach you how to help your patients avoid dependence and abuse.
• Consolidation in Health Care – Reversing the Benefits of Competition, with Henry Allen, JD, and Diana Moss, PhD.

And don’t worry if you’re interested in more than one; these workshops will be repeated Saturday afternoon.

Following the workshops is an interactive program: MACRA – The New Physician Payment Program; Tools and Resources to Support the Transition presented by Mark Levine, MD. The SGR is gone; are you ready for its replacement? Come learn how to succeed with Medicare’s new quality payment program. Also speaking is Carol Vargo, American Medical Association director of physician practice sustainability.

The COMPAC lunch on Saturday, The Voters Hold the Trump Card, will feature a lively panel discussion moderated by COMPAC Chair Mark B. Johnson, MD. A distinguished panel featuring Colorado’s top nonpartisan analyst, Floyd Ciruli; the AMA’s federal and congressional affairs guru, Rich Deem; and our veteran lobbyist, Jerry Johnson, will assess the down-ballot consequences of the presidential contest and speculate on the various win-lose scenarios and their respective influence on the direction of state and federal health policy. We’ll even have two surprise awards presentations.

“You may gain some insight into exactly what is driving this crazy election – or you may leave as confused as ever,” Johnson said. “But either way, you will be able to recognize and thank our two legislative award winners who have made medicine a priority and who support physicians and patients at the state capitol every day!”

Sunday morning features our final panel discussion of the weekend: Physician Aid in Dying – Perspectives and Priorities. This topic is sure to stimulate fascinating discussion informed by the results of a recent all-member survey. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the perspectives and priorities of CMS physicians on this difficult, often polarizing, topic with the hope of identifying areas of common ground where we can work together to protect our patients and our colleagues.

“Physicians across the nation are grappling with the implications of an expanding movement to enact PAD laws, most recently in California,” said speaker Kupersmit. “At this panel, we’ll explore deep differences, as well as areas of strong agreement among CMS members on this difficult issue. Your peers working with patients in end-of-life care, as well as patients and their families who face these issues, need physicians like you to be informed and ready should efforts to legalize PAD advance in Colorado.”

Joining Kupersmit on the panel are CEJA Vice Chair Lynn Parry, MD, and CHI’s Lueck, with moderator CMS President Michael Volz, MD.

We can’t wait to dive into the annual meeting programming. Find more information and register at www.cms.org. We’ll see you in Keystone the weekend of Sept. 16-18.