The group rate for the host hotel of the 2016 CMS Annual Meeting has been extended to Wednesday, Aug. 17. The meeting will be held Sept. 16-18 at the Keystone Resort in Keystone, Colo. A limited number of hotel rooms at the resort are guaranteed under the CMS group rate starting at $156/night, not including 12.02% tax. Reserve your room through the resort's online reservations webpage, by phone at 1-800-258-0437, or by fax by downloading the lodging form in Word or as a PDF. CMS's group code is CL2M16. Be sure to mention this code to receive the group rate. Rooms may be available after the deadline; call 1-800-258-0437 and give the group code (CL2M16) to book lodging after Aug. 17.

Still need to register for the meeting? Go to CMS's online registration portal.

The National Health Care Surveys, administered by the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, now offers Eligible Providers the opportunity to receive meaningful use (MU) credit by providing data via the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS).

Submitting data through the NAMCS complies with:

Meaningful Use Stage 2

• Objective 10: Public Health Reporting;
  • Measure 3: Specialized Registry Reporting;

• Objective 8: Public Health and Clinical Data Registry Reporting;
  • Measure 4: Public Health Registry Reporting.

The Colorado Division of Insurance, in response to a directive from the legislature, recently studied the feasibility of using one geographic rating area (rather than the nine current areas) for setting health insurance premiums for individual and small group markets. Rather than moving to one geographic area, Insurance Commissioner Marguerite Salazar will "focus on ways to control underlying health care costs to address rising insurance premiums," according to a DOI news release.

The DOI announced its intention to immediately assemble key stakeholders -- which will include physicians -- to meet and develop a set of recommendations before the end of the year.

Health insurance companies can differentiate their premiums between geographic areas. The DOI's study showed that geographical areas with high average premiums have had high health costs. "Moving to a single geographic rating area will have no impact on health care costs, and without tackling these costs, there is little hope of bringing down health insurance premiums," the DOI said in the release.

The study can be found on the Division's main website --dora.colorado.gov/insurance -- under the section "More from DOI."

Every day, more than 75 people in the United States die from a prescription drug or heroin overdose. In 2013, nearly 249 million prescriptions were written for opioids - enough for every adult in America to have a bottle of pills. "We, as clinicians, are uniquely positioned to turn the tide on the opioid epidemic," says U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA.

Last week Murthy launched TurnTheTideRx.org. As the digital home of his Turn The Tide campaign, the site offers clinicians practical tools, information, and in-the-trenches stories from colleagues offering their insights into the epidemic. Murthy urges all clinicians to join the movement and take the clinician pledge at TurnTheTideRx.org/join.

A lot is happening in the world of payment reform. If you work in health care, your inbox is inevitably filled with tweets, newsletters and "Breaking News!" about VBPs, MIPS, MACRA, CJR, BCPI and a whole alphabet soup of others.

To address the onslaught of information and to really bring into focus what is happening right here in Colorado, Healthy Transitions Colorado is dedicating its August Symposium to payment reform.

Registration closes tomorrow, Wednesday, Aug. 17. Click here to view the draft agenda.

Community Partners receive discounted registration fees! Your organization can sign up to be a community partner today.

For questions, please contact Miranda Meadow at [email protected].