CMS board addresses issues important
to your practices and patients
Report from the Nov. 14 board meeting
Our new president and colleague, Dr. Tamaan Osbourne-Roberts, promised the board at the September meeting that he'd return to Denver and hit the ground running. It was a promise kept. In the external environment, two items are particularly noteworthy and both resulted in board actions at their meeting on Friday, Nov. 14.
First, in the week immediately following the Annual Meeting, Aspen Public Radio contacted our president and wanted a response to an article in the Denver Business Journal on anticipated health insurance premiums in 2015. The article rather extensively quoted the state's insurance commissioner, Marguerite Salazar; part of her reasoning for anticipated lower premiums in 2015 was the narrowing of networks and the insurance commissioner added that the department was in the process of studying these networks to assure quality of care. In Dr. Osbourne-Roberts' public response on our behalf, he called out the narrow network issue and sent the insurance commissioner a heads-up about what CMS was saying to the press along with a request for a meeting to discuss narrow networks.
Within two weeks, he, President-elect Dr. Mike Volz, former CMS board member Dr. Jim Regan, Denver Medical Society Executive Director Kathy Lindquist-Kleissler, and CMS lobbyists Susan Koontz and Jerry Johnson met with Commissioner Salazar and discussed the patient care implications of physician de-selections when networks are narrowed and presented her with our new House of Delegates policy that was passed in September. Seizing this opportunity, the board voted at our meeting on Friday to use these dynamics to achieve enhanced patient and provider protections for network adequacy of health insurance plans. Click here to read the full action item and the background material that informed the board's discussion. Click here to read Dr. Osbourne-Robert's response to Aspen Public Radio.
Second, with the Ebola virus on America's doorstep and even closer to home in Dallas, Texas, the issue spiked in the run up to the general election. Our new president organized a kitchen cabinet of advisers that included two board members, both local public health officials, Drs. Christine Nevin-Woods and Mark Johnson, along with Dr. Mike Volz, Immediate Past President Dr. John L. Bender, and ADEMS President Dr. David Markenson. These physicians provided staff with guidance in building out educational materials for our members (see www.cms.org); coordinating with CDPHE, the state agency responsible for preparedness; participating in a CDPHE press conference; and representing CMS at a special legislative hearing at the state capitol.
The state's CMO, Dr. Larry Wolk, updated the board on Friday and following discussion, the board voted to aggressively support efforts to ensure that public health, health systems and 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. The board also voted to appoint a board advisory committee on Ebola to be headed by Drs. Nevin-Woods and Johnson. Click here to read the document that informed the board's discussion and the full action item.
Internal to CMS, the board voted on several items important to HOD members - read more below.
We encourage you to contact us any time about the actions of the board or the House. Your comments are important to us!
- CMS Speaker Robert Yakely, MD and Vice-Speaker Brigitta Robinson, MD