EPCMS Office Closed

December 20 to 30

Recently, EPCMS made the decision to stay at our current office location at 730 Citadel Drive East for the immediate future.  As part of our re-negotiated lease, the office will be undergoing repairs and remodeling at the end of December.

The EPCMS office will be closed December 20 through 30, 2011.  Staff will be accessing voicemail, so please leave a message at 591-2424 for assistance during this time. 

The El Paso County Medical Society is pleased to introduce these physicians. 

 These colleagues have added their voice to the mission and activities of your local medical society.

View New Members

Learn More About a Colleague

Update Your Profile

Upcoming Events 

 Health Information Technology EHR Adoption Symposium 

HITECH ACUTE CARE

December 2, 2011

or

January 14, 2012

Denver, CO

8AM- 4:30 PM

HITECH LONG-TERM CARE

December 9, 2011

Greeley, CO

8AM- 4:30 PM

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Your medical society is charged with looking ahead to recognize and evaluate issues and needs on the horizon for you as member physicians. As part of this proactive effort, we have taken the advice of our online tools and website developers, Medical Voyce, and upgraded the security of the EPCMS website which enables you to more effectively market your practice and communicate with your colleagues. This is an important step to ensure the safety of your profile information just as you and your office staff work diligently to protect the information of your patients. As part of this overall upgrade, the login protocols for your profiles are changing. Please make certain your current email is on file with the EPCMS office.

Look for an email from EPCMS with your new login information.

After logging in to your profile, please take a moment to ensure the information is complete and up to date, including the insurance accepted by your office. The peer-to-peer email field is a priority. You may choose to have colleagues contact you at a different email from the administrative one on file. The Medical Voyce, Ask-My-Doc® HIPAA and HL7 compliant communication tool available through our website is connected to this directory. There is no software or downloads required. It will work with any EMR system or with none at all. However, without an email in the peer-to-peer field, you will not receive an alert when a colleague is trying to reach you for a referral or consult.

EPCMS, along with the rest of the multi-state network, will be unifying the specialty drop down list on the profiles. The major specialty list will be limited to those found on the American Board of Medical Specialties and the American Osteopathic Association approved lists. However, you will still be able to add specific sub-specialties that best describe your areas of expertise by contacting the EPCMS office. This change is being effected across the network to ensure all appropriate physicians are returned in appropriate results for searches done by physicians and the public alike. Our experience shows that potential patients most frequently search by the general and more commonly know specialties first then narrow their search.

These advances are all part of our effort to proactively provide you with the information and tools to help you efficiently and effectively run your practice. Please feel free to email tina@epcms.org or call EPCMS at 719.591.2424or Medical Voyce at 719.884.1184 for assistance with your profile or the Ask-My-Doc® tool.

Friends of EPCMS

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EPCMSnews  

News & Information From El Paso County Medical Society

December 2011

In December, the Memorial Health Care Task Force will review five proposals and select one that will be presented to voters this spring.  This vote will determine how healthcare is delivered in this community for the next forty years.  Most of you will not be able to attend the informational meetings on December 2nd and December 7th, but it is important for you to be informed about these issues.  Please avail yourselves of this information in whatever way you can. A good place to start would be www.springsgov.com: click on the Memorial Health Systems task force on the right. A good summary can be found on the recent MHS town hall link.   As major stake holders in this decision, we need to garner physician opinion with this brief survey.  Click here to take the survey.  Survey must be completed by Tuesday, December 6.  We will query you again after the two task force meetings in December. 

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36 Presidents and 34 years....

A Retrospective of the Past and Fond Farewell to the EPCMS Membership as Carol Retires on January 31, 2012 

I've been asked to share some milestones during my career as your Executive Vice President. A full review would take more space than I am allotted in this newsletter but, a few special things are:

• When the society agreed we needed to secure grants to purse issues of interest to EPCMS members, I formed the EPCMS Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit. We have been successful in securing and administering several grants for the benefit of local physicians and our community
• Collaboration with Dallas and Travis county (Texas) medical societies secured a $986,529 grant which launched Practice Net Solutions, a business approach in support of volunteer physicians
• The Prescription Assistance Solution Service (PASS) program assures that patients who cannot afford their prescriptions can take advantage of free pharmaceutical programs. Over $12 million in free prescriptions have been secured for your patients. WOW.
• Doctor Rip Hollister's passion to organize his colleagues around disaster response after 9/11 has become one of the premier Medical Reserves Corps in the country. Many thanks to our current MDs, Doctors Crawford and Reynolds.

Carol Walker 2010

We took a leading edge approach to patient medication compliance when EPCMS partnered with PharmaFutures to develop the EPCMS Physicians Rx Care discount pharmacy card. This program saved your patients an average of thirty-six percent.
• Being selected for several competitive leadership training opportunities including the PF Leadership Academy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University Center for Creative Leadership, and Leadership Pikes Peak has been rewarding and exciting.
• There was stiff opposition when I founded the local Seat Belt Coalition. Along with the other coalitions across the state, we were successful in establishing Colorado's seat belt laws.
• Working with an army of dedicated women, my daughter and I had a great time when we co-chaired the AHA Go Red For Women program.
• Doctors Martin, Marta, Gifford, me, and many physicians and firefighters brought the bold concept of EMT and paramedic services in the Colorado Springs Fire Department to life.
• When I encouraged EPCMS leaders to join a class action lawsuit against managed care companies some outside this medical society predicted dire negative consequences. Undaunted, Dr. Larry Moore and the entire EPCMS board said to go for it and EPCMS became one of only three county medical societies and nineteen state societies that prevailed and as a result formed a multi-million dollar non-profit foundation which now does leading edge research and grantmaking in support of physicians and their patients.
• I loved being an "Executive on Loan" to COPIC working with your colleagues across the state when we twice mounted successful grassroots campaigns to assure Colorado would not be put into the turmoil of raising the cap on non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases.
• Never in the history of EPCMS has a president resigned. Well, never until Laura Pomerenke shocked me with her resignation. Of course, she did have a splendid reason ... twins were on the way. As Vice President, Bill Mandell took the office he gave a solemn oath that he would not become pregnant during his term of office. Glad to report he kept his promise.

• I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of physician though the many EPCMS committees that make a measurable difference in our community such as the Committee for Persons with Development Disability, Extended Care Ethics, Emergency Care, Medical Ethics, Physician Nurse Collaborative, School Health Advisory Committees and the Delegates. Wish I had space to share all their successes.

• With the help of our always supportive partner, Medical Voyce, your website has come a long way from the website I developed sitting on my couch at home.
• I've been engaged with so many community leaders who I admire through activities and organizations such as Citizens' Goals (now Leadership Pikes Peak), Executive Women International, Beth El Community Advisory Committee, Chamber Health Care Council, and Community Health Partnership.
• Doctor Bill Lloyd convinced me to become the first female member of the North Colorado Springs Rotary Club. He warned me there would be times when it might be tense; he was sure right, but with patience and time it became an experience I wouldn't change, making friends I still treasure.
• Though no longer in existence, it was an intense time when EPCMS joined other medical societies throughout Colorado to form IPAs. Doctor Jim Edwards was the medical director of SCMPA, Southern Colorado Medical Practice Association.
• Through our work with HealthTeamWorks, a quality improvement coach is available to work with physicians in El Paso and Teller counties at no charge to assure they are ready for the practice reforms coming their way.
• I was a founder of the Medical Society Credentials Verification Organizations of America (MSCVOA).  Medical societies from around the nation were devoted to raising awareness of the value of centralized credentials verification. Though we were not successful in convincing the nation, the EPCMS Centralized Credentials Verification Service has grown to meet all requirements of primary source verification (and more) and is a shining example of how this medical society meets the needs of members.
• As a result of MSCVOA, a few of us formed the National Credentialing Forum where now leaders from all aspects of physician and allied health credentialing come together from all over the country to identify challenges and craft solutions.

• When President Thomas Morgan said it should be a slam dunk to ask physicians to donate only $100 to form the "United Way of physician giving" I readily agreed, and the El Paso County Physicians Foundation was formed. This year Dr. Brain Sperber and his board made grants to fourteen local non-profit organizations.
• OMG what a delight were our MASH Bash productions and later The Events. Now that was fun. If you weren't here, ask your colleagues.
• So many physicians have given so much to assure our community takes care of those who are underinsured or have no insurance. I loved working with Doctor Ray Stecker, Ted Lewis and others over nineteen years ago when they had the vision to bring together all the agencies in our community who provide health care services. Their vision has resulted in the now successful Community Health Partnership.
• Governor Bill Ritter appointed me to the Colorado Commission on Family Medicine. Keep an eye on the news. We are working on exciting things to bring parity to graduate medical education programs and there are exciting opportunities on the horizon for federally qualified medical clinics such as Peak Vista to be community based training centers.
• Have you heard about Think About It Colorado? I serve on the Advisory Board that is determined to spark a statewide conversation about patient safety and drive reform in this critical area.
• There has been a positive response to our requests for physicians interested in becoming mentors for Rocky Vista and Colorado University medical school students and eventually supporting a branch campus of the CU medical school. Won't it be exciting when we finally have a teaching program in our community?
• Talk about exciting, we have a good start, but I can't wait till I see the announcement that CORHIO has established a robust electronic health information exchange in our community.
• Some of you remember when we had membership meetings rather than Physician Connections and met at the Hilton Hotel with a formal head table (where we ... gasp ... smoked!) and the elegant meetings at the Plaza Club when educational programs were the norm.

• One of the things that makes it so hard to retire is losing the frequent contact with med execs from coast to coast. The friendships developed through working on the many AAMSE and AMA committees, task forces and projects will last a lifetime. Alfred Gilchrist, his state medical society team, and my colleagues in Colorado have been critical to my ability to serve this society and I will truly miss them.

There is so much more I that would be fun to share about this innovative, creative, robust medical society. It's been professionally and personally satisfying to play a key role for thirty-four remarkable years of your ninety-eight year history. Who knew when Dr. Paul Roesler hired me for "a little part-time job" those many years ago how it would turn out. Thank you, Doctor Roesler, I say it turned out remarkable!

Carol Walker 1988

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Amilu Stewart, M.D.

Amilu Stewart, M.D., received the American College of Surgeons Distinguished Service Award, their highest honor, at the ACS 2010 Annual Clinical Congress. Dr. Stewart was recognized for her years of service on the admissions committee at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, as a volunteer with local clinics, and for her work founding the ACS Foundation and COPIC. She was one of the five founding members of COPIC, and a member of the COPIC Board of Directors for eighteen years. Dr. Stewart's work was recognized by Jefferson Medical College in 2011 when she was awarded their Distinguished Alumni Award. 

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Do you use a P.O. Box or lock box address as you billing provider address to receive payments?  If you submit claims electronically, you will be required use only a street address or physical location as the billing provider address.  Continuing to report a P.O. Box in the billing provider address field will cause your claims to reject.

Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), all physicians and other health care providers that submit claims electronically are required to transition to the Version 5010 transactions by Jan. 1.  One of many data reporting changes in the Version 5010 transactions is the requirement to report only a street address or physical location as the billing provider address.  Practices that wish to continue having payments sent to a P.O. Box or lock box will report this address in the "pay-to" address field. 

You may need to work with your practice management system vendor, billing service, or clearinghouse to have this address change made for your claims.  Talk to them today to find out if a change is needed and when it will be done.  This work needs to be done prior to January 1 to prevent claims rejections and interruptions in your cash flow.  Learn More

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Some other things in transition: Memorial Health System, HIPAA 5010, and our medical neighborhood.  Find out more about these in upcoming issues of EPCMSnews and epcmsXPRESS.