COPIC Comment: COPIC’s 2017 education seminars

Monday, May 01, 2017 12:41 PM

Gain valuable knowledge and earn COPIC points

by Ted J. Clarke, MD, Chairman & CEO, COPIC Insurance Company

Each year, COPIC offers an array of in-person seminars that are designed for medical providers and feature expert speakers. These seminars are scheduled at locations across the state, generally last an hour, and enable attendees to earn COPIC points, which apply toward an annual premium discount.

COPIC’s physician risk managers and legal team oversee the development of content for these activities. This involves a rigorous process to identify topics based on insight drawn from claim reviews, input from our staff, recent trends in health care, feedback from insureds, and current medical literature. The following are some key categories of seminars with examples to illustrate the types of education activities available.

1. Communication, Teamwork and Systems—Claims experience shows that effective communication skills are directly related to a decreased risk of claims and lawsuits. These seminars are designed to strengthen the communication skills of medical professionals and provide a greater understanding of interpersonal interactions in the medical setting.
   • Diagnostic Errors—Thinking Like Sherlock—This seminar explores the issues associated with diagnostic errors. Participants will discuss the importance of diagnostic errors and review examples of these types of errors. In addition, we examine the different root causes of biases and describe practical suggestions to improve your diagnostic process.
   • Difficult Clinician-Patient Encounters—This seminar uses interactive, case-based vignettes to teach you how to improve your techniques with difficult patients. It focuses on determining what constitutes a difficult patient interaction, then describes how to diagnose relationship issues and formulate a skill set to use in difficult encounters.

 

2. Patient Safety and Medical Legal Curriculum—These seminars focus on key issues related to patient safety and risk management that addresses common areas where liability concerns often emerge. Several activities are updated annually to reflect current trends in health care.

   • Maximizing Safe and Effective Practice with Physicians, PAs and NPs—This seminar reviews the regulatory and scope of practice elements that are the most important for safe and effective practice involving PAs and NPs, along with the physicians who work with them.
   • The Opioid Crisis Part I—The Pain that Won’t Go Away; and Part II—Strategies for Reducing the Burden—Part I examines the scope of the opioid problem based on guidance from the CDC, FDA, medical boards and other best practices to describe practical approaches to practice more safely with opioids. Part II reviews the reasoning and criteria for opioid dose reduction and discontinuation while teaching techniques to encourage patient buy-in with a focus on overcoming fear and resistance.

 

3. Legal Aspects of Medicine—COPIC draws upon the expertise of its legal team and attorney partners to offer these seminars as opportunities to gain valuable insight on top legal issues.

   • Developments in Colorado Telehealth Law—This seminar helps you learn and understand the ins and outs of telehealth law in Colorado. It focuses on identifying the myriad of definitions and terminology associated with telehealth followed by a discussion about state and federal regulations influencing the practice of telehealth.
   • HIPAA: Into the Breach—Learn what to do in an emergency breach situation and develop strategies to help prevent it from happening. Participants learn to recognize the appropriate steps to take when responding and how to remain in compliance with the HIPAA Privacy, Security and Breach Notification Regulations.

Sharing knowledge with others is essential to improving medical outcomes. COPIC remains committed to investing time and resources to develop education that supports medical providers and their efforts to stay informed. Visit www.callcopic.com/education to learn more about the education seminars that COPIC offers and to register for upcoming activities.