“The key to improvement is to standardize, simplify and make your decisions clinically relevant.”- Dave Downs, MD, FACP, 2020 NCMS Legislative Night Moderator

The Northern Colorado Medical Society’s 2020 Legislative Night held on Wednesday, Oct. 7 from 6-8 p.m. will not be one to remember just because it was the NCMS’s first virtual Legislative Night event, it will be remembered because important conversations were had that will continue to protect physicians not only in Weld and Larimer counties, but in the state of Colorado.

The event took place over Zoom and rather than your usual table conversations, guests, candidates and elected officials were able to experience the familiar evening in Zoom breakout rooms. Over 30 people participated, with a diverse group of physician members of many practice settings and specialties.  

Dr. Dave Downs moderated the evening, and was even able to travel between all Zoom breakout rooms to answer questions. You can find the moderator’s thoughts on the evening directly below. Following the moderator report you will find a brief report of top “takeaways” from each breakout room. Finally, the success of the evening is not over, and continued engagement is necessary. NCMS is happy to provide a list of ways you can remain involved proceeding this report.

Top five observations from our moderator, Dr. Dave Downs:

1. Primary care support is important for access to care, quality of care and cost reduction.
2. Unnecessary administrative burden is a drag on practices and adds costs to the system and to coverage that do not benefit anyone.
3. Unneeded complexity affects delivery systems and health care markets. It contributes to waste, inefficiency and decreased patient safety. When considering changes to systems and markets, we need to move toward standardization and simplification with an eye to clinical relevance and increasing the likelihood of improved outcomes.
4. Look upstream. One-quarter of health care costs are expended on the sickest 1% of the population. One-half of cost is for the top 5%. The lowest 50% consume only about 3% of resources. The sickest people are often those with chronic disease that is poorly controlled and are often the result of poor lifestyles. Focusing on social determinants of health and excellent chronic disease management will save money. More resources spent here will have a high return on investment.
5. The two largest drivers of health care costs are 1) prices (especially hospitals as demonstrated in the RAND study) and pharmaceuticals and 2) waste due to overuse, underuse, misuse and unneeded complexity. These should be targeted in a state option.

Top takeaways from this year’s topics, the Colorado Affordable Health Care Option and Maintaining Colorado’s Stable Medical Liability

Colorado Affordable Health Care Option:

• COVID-19 has brought unforeseen budget challenges, which limits state funding for projects like this. Many breakout rooms discussed that a diverse group of physicians must continue to be included at the table, making sure the 2021 bill is patient focused while decreasing administrative burdens.
• Standardized benefit packages were also addressed as critical.

Maintaining Colorado’s Stable Medical Liability:

• In many breakout room discussions, the effects of increased medical liability were discussed, including that patients lose access to care as physicians leave geographic areas, especially rural communities. The vision remains to protect Colorado’ stable medical liability.
• Telehealth liability was brought up in several breakout rooms and this will remain in consideration.