Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of your Board of Directors, I hope this letter finds you well and enjoying a much-anticipated spring! We’ve been busy and look forward to engaging our membership this year!

Your Board of Directors met for our annual strategic planning meeting in February. As in previous years, we continue to prioritize physician wellness, end of life, and substance use disorder. We also highlighted our continued commitment to thoughtful and meaningful engagement of our legislators around issues most important to northern Colorado, the rising cost of health care in Colorado, communication with our members, and education of our community.

As the opioid and prescription drug crisis continues, the NCMS Board recognizes that evidence-based treatment exists for opioid use disorder, and that such treatment is incredibly under-utilized. We continue to facilitate provider education through buprenorphine waiver training opportunities. Three trainings were offered in February, March and April and more will be coming! It is our hope that many in our physician community will obtain the training and begin to offer this life-saving treatment to persons in their care with opioid use disorder. If you are interested in obtaining this training, please contact Maria Medina, NCMS executive director, at maria@nocomedsoc.com.

The cost of health care in Colorado continues to be poorly understood by the general public and even by us as physicians, and its solutions are even more perplexing. With that said, we know that so often the most effective and lasting solutions are local! Your Board of Directors recently voted to collaborate with the Weld County Department of Public Health and Environment to ask the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC), host of the All Payer Claims Database, to analyze northern Colorado health care data with the goal of better understanding northern Colorado health care costs. Our aim is to gather this data and then engage with you, our members, in meaningful dialogue and planning around how to address these issues in northern Colorado.

Finally, due to scheduling conflicts we have postponed the no-agenda Meet and Greet at my home in Greeley. It was originally scheduled for May 18 but instead will be held Aug. 17. Please save the date. With the soulful sounds of The Matt Pack to take us into the evening, my family and I are looking forward to spending time with you and your family.

These are just a few of the ways in which your Board of Directors is working to serve you. We have five open seats on our Board. Please let us know if you might be interested in joining us on the Board and serving the physicians of northern Colorado by completing this form and emailing your CV to nocomedsoc@gmail.com. We’d love to have you!

If you haven’t already, please check out our website, www.nocomedsoc.org. And don’t forget to “like” our members-only Facebook page, www.facebook.com/nocomedsoc, so you can see what else is happening and share your ideas! And, of course, feel free to reach out to me directly at lbrooks.sunrise@nocoha.org.

Kind regards,

Lesley Brooks, MD
President, NCMS