President’s letter: Driving the future of medicine

Monday, July 01, 2013 12:05 PM

Jan Kief, President
Colorado Medical Society

With summer in full swing, we are able to shift into a lower gear, but cruising is definitely not an option. At the last CMS board meeting we heard a progress report on our 14-page work plan; directors were amazed at the breadth and depth of issues that are handled by your leadership, staff and committees to advocate for you and our profession. These CMS initiatives, coupled with your efforts in your communities, underscore the strength of the voice of physicians in Colorado.

Our new website, which I encourage you to visit at www.cms.org, will make it easier to access information, provide feedback and remain apprised of CMS initiatives and programs. Our goals are to increase the voice of our members, foster grass-roots activity, provide support to you as you swerve to avoid the pitfalls of health care reform, allow you to embrace evidence-based innovations, make your participation on our committees easier and more meaningful, and develop leadership in the physician community.

When I speak to physicians around the state, I advise you to look at the varied issues we are working on, find the one that is most meaningful to you, and then get involved to help find solutions to these challenges. Here are some areas that might pique your interest:

• Your Council on Practice Evolution has been working to define the measures that will be used to monitor physicians in the All Payer Claims Database (APCD) through CIVHC.
• Your Workers’ Compensation/Personal Injury Committee and a special task force are tackling the huge issue of prescription drug abuse and participating in the governor’s discussions around the epidemiology, prescription drug monitoring program, drug disposal, and patient and physician education in this area. This problem affects us all; awareness and even small efforts on our part are necessary NOW. This will likely be an area of action in the legislature next year. I would recommend that all physicians become more aware by taking the Opioid Prescribing course webinar developed by the School of Public Health. The link is on the CMS website: www.cms.org/resources/opioid-crisis-cme-and-toolkit. More than 600 physicians have been certified in this course so far!
• We are actively working on your behalf with regard to Maintenance of Licensure and Certification (MOL and MOC) and you will see much more about this in the near future.
• The rollout of the Choosing Wisely Initiative is underway in collaboration with Kaiser and the specialty organizations around the state. Remember, we were the first state medical society to endorse Choosing Wisely, which now includes recommendations from 35 specialties.
• We have several surveys in the field and I thank CMS members who participate in them. Your feedback provides useful and actionable information to us on many topics.
• A unique initiative, One Colorado, is underway with CMS and Denver Medical Society to identify and educate physicians and patients regarding health care disparities in the LGBT community.
• To help your practice in its day-to-day operations, our prior authorization bill (now a law) and our leading work on clean claims and standard edits continues.
• Physician leadership training is becoming an important tool. As we begin to recruit for our next Advanced Physician Leadership Course, let us know your interest and whether the practice or organization in which you work may be interested in sponsoring you.
• I have had the pleasure of talking with the residents on their weeklong rotation through COPIC about the importance of engagement with organized medicine throughout their careers. This has been a valuable two-way conversation in which they learn what we do for physicians and I learn what the residents’ visions are for practice in the future, as well as what they perceive to be problems today. These are the leaders of tomorrow, and with their “fresh eyes” approach I believe our students and residents will be the key to solving many of our challenges in health care delivery.
• Your CMS membership becomes even more valuable with our new CMS “member-only” programs, such as DocbookMD.

Our membership drive is underway: tell your colleagues that CMS works diligently and effectively for you and our profession. Let’s keep revving up this summer. I appreciate your participation as health care evolves. It is important we take this ride together and that we choose to be in the driver’s seat.