The Colorado General Assembly adjourned Friday, May 3, after a whirlwind session that put health care law and policy in the spotlight. Despite the great opportunities and vulnerabilities for physicians, we made real gains. The hot spots were in professional review reenactment (achieved without opening the system to discoverability), the Medical Practice Act sunset (achieved with favorable changes), the opioid crisis (multiple bills achieved to address the epidemic but with a mandatory CME requirement), out-of-network reform (achieved but without our preferred payment benchmark), prior authorization reform (achieved) and more. More important, we deflected bad policies that could have made the session catastrophic for our patients. Read more in this CMS update and in the upcoming May/June issue of Colorado Medicine. I particularly want to thank our local legislator, Senate President Leroy Garcia, for his dedication and leadership this session on the Professional Review Act Sunset.
Sincerely,
Brad Roberts, MD
PCMS representative on the CMS Board of Directors