As Ebola continues to garner substantial media coverage, the public has responded with increasing anxiety to the virus' arrival on U.S. shores. The Colorado Medical Society is working with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), the state agency dedicated to protecting the health and environment in Colorado, to arm physicians with the resources they need to reassure the public and protect themselves.

CMS has pledged our full cooperation and support to the Office of the Governor and to CDPHE. We strongly support the department's goal of making sure that public health, health systems, health care professionals and other partners are prepared to recognize a potential Ebola case, to halt its transmission efficiently and quickly, and to protect our frontline health care providers.

On Tuesday, Oct. 21, CMS President Tamaan Osbourne-Roberts, MD, participated in a press conference called by the governor's office by answering media questions; click here to read the CMS media release. On Thursday, Oct. 23, Mark Johnson, MD, a public health official who will soon begin service on the CMS Board of Directors, represented CMS at a legislative hearing. Also on Oct. 23, CMS held meetings with the Colorado Hospital Association and a conference call with CDPHE physician leaders.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released tightened guidance for U.S. health care workers on personal protective equipment (PPE) on Oct. 20. This guidance is intended for health care workers entering the room of a patient hospitalized with Ebola virus disease. Click here to read more.

The CDC is expected to issue guidance soon for outpatient physicians; we'll distribute this guidance as it is available. CDPHE has distributed a Health Alert on this topic that is available here and provides links to additional CDC resources.

CDPHE continues to urge Colorado physicians to implement a three-step process for every patient encounter:

• Ask
  • All patients if they have traveled to Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia within 21 days, and
  • About symptoms consistent with Ebola Virus Disease.
  • Everyone, every time.
• Isolate
  • If both criteria are met, isolate the patient in a single patient room (with private bathroom) with door closed.
• Call
  • Call hospital leadership, and
  • Call CDPHE at (303) 692-2700 (evenings and weekends: (303) 370-9395). Also notify CDPHE of any patients reporting exposure to Ebola, even if they have no symptoms.

Note: Public health experts recommend that when screening, if symptoms are present but there is no travel history, follow normal processes for a patient with respiratory or viral illness, especially as we enter flu season.

A simple poster outline the principles of "Ask, Isolate, Call" is available on CDPHE's website. Click here to access it.

CMS is working with CDPHE to develop physician education that is concise and easily accessible. One segment of this education will specifically target outpatient physicians who aren't on a hospital staff so they and their staff are prepared if a potential Ebola patient arrives for diagnosis.

Click here to visit CMS' resource page on Ebola; it is updated often with the latest information.

In September, the CMS board of directors voted to create a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Health Care Costs and Quality and CMS has placed a call for members to join this task force. The group will engage the state's Commission on Affordable Health Care - which has been directed by the Colorado General Assembly to identify systemic and other underlying causes of excessive and unnecessary health care costs and to propose specific legislative, regulatory, and market-based strategies to reduce costs and improve quality.

Additionally, the CMS task force will develop evidenced-based proposals to reduce cost and improve quality, respond to and seek a physician consensus on proposals submitted by third parties to the commission, and report to CMS members on the work of the commission and the task force.

The task force must be multi-specialty and representative of the multiple practice types: small groups, medium and large multi- and single-specialty practices, and hospital employed settings. Task force members preferably should have extensive experience in care delivery management, such as how care is priced, billed and delivered at a high value.

Interested physicians must be willing to commit to a three-year term that parallels the statutory life of the state's commission. CMS expects to call a minimum of four meetings in 2015. Each of these meeting will be conducted on a weekday evening at CMS headquarters in Denver, include meals, and last for two to three hours.

Click here to access an online application form. The deadline to submit your application is Dec. 1.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services continues to phase-in public reporting of quality information on the Physician Compare website. The AMA reports that the agency plans to publish the next round of data in December, if technically feasible.

The information to be posted is only about group practices that participated in the 2013 Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) Group Practice Reporting Option (GPRO) Web interface, including participants in the Medicare Shared Savings program. The 30-day period for previewing the measures is Oct. 6 - Nov. 7. Agency contractor Westat sent an email to the practices' authorized representatives who submitted 2013 PQRS Web-interface measures, informing them of the 30-day preview period.

As specified in the 2013 Physician Fee Schedule final rule, the agency will be publicly reporting a subset of 2013 GPRO diabetes and coronary artery disease web-interface measures on Physician Compare. Specifically, the federal CMS is considering publishing three diabetes measures and one CAD measure.

The measure preview will be facilitated through the Provider Quality Information Portal. Physicians can send questions to the Physician Compare support team by emailing [email protected].