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Changes to Medical Practice Act and the "Michael Skolnik Medical Transparency Act of 2010"

New legislation is impacting a number of professions across the state with changes in licensing and registration requirements, responsibilities and deadlines. Affected professions include addiction counselors, advanced practice nurses, certified public accountants, electricians, licensed professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, physicians, podiatrists, social workers, surgical technicians and professions impacted by the Skolnik Transparency Act.  The Division of Registrations, part of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies, is hosting informational sessions December 1 and 9 to address these changes. Each session will open with a brief overview of the division’s role in licensing and regulating more than 47 professions, occupations and entities, tools and resources available for professionals. Sessions specific to each profession will allow division staff to answer questions, distribute support materials and provide guidance on what is now required to do business in good standing in Colorado.

Specific impacts include:

·   Advanced Practice Nurses – new legislation resulted in changes to the Nurse Practice Act, including requiring renewal for Advanced Practice and Prescriptive Authorities in addition to each licensee renewing an RN license.

·   Health Care Professionals – Skolnik Transparency Act – requires additional healthcare professionals to meet new public profile disclosure requirements relating to licenses, affiliations, business ownership interests, disciplinary actions and other information, effective July 1, 2011. 

·   Mental Health Professions – Addiction counselors, licensed professional counselors, marriage and family therapists and social workers licensed or certified to practice in Colorado must meet new continuing competency requirements designed to ensure continuing professional development in order to renew, reinstate or reactivate their license after January 1, 2011.   

·   Physicians must understand the changes made during the 2010 legislative session by HB-10-1260 which continued the Medical Board and made changes to the Medical Practice Act.   

Questions may be submitted to Division staff at reglegislativeoutreach@dora.state.co.us. To register click here.

Interested in letting Govenor-Elect Hickenlooper know your thoughts and suggestions for healthcare in Colorado?

Submit your comments on his Partners for Colorado website. Click here.

Advocacy through stories!

As part of ClinicNET’s work to raise public awareness of the safety net scene in Colorado it is always helpful to have stories that can be conveyed to the public, government officials, media, etc., that illustrate and highlight the work of community-funded safety net clinics, your impact and insights and, of course, your patients personal perspectives and realities. To that end ClinicNET is interested in knowing if you would be willing to participate directly in some of our efforts, potentially being called upon to speak to the media, gov't officials, etc., and if you have any patients that would be willing to share their stories in person or with permission via you. Please email me directly if you are willing to be on our short list of go-to clinics. Thanks!   

Strategies to Improve the Infant Mortality Rate and Address a Health Disparity in Colorado

A Webinar Series For Providers: click here for more information.

Colorado Public Radio Survey

Colorado Public Radio (CPR) is asking professionals, executives, and volunteers in the health field to participate in a survey, to evaluate Colorado Public Radio’s health and health care coverage. The goal of this confidential survey is to understand how members of the local health care community feel about CPR’s coverage of health care issues, with the goal of improving the content. The survey can be found on www.CPRHealthSurvey.org.

Colorado Rural Health Care Grant Program

Purpose: To support projects that support the rural health infrastructure and strengthen the capacity of rural entities to provide outpatient primary care services now and in the future. For more information about the grant click here.

Amount: Up to $50,000.

Dates: Grant guidance will be posted Dec 1, 2010. Applications will be due in early March.

Primary eligibility requirement: Project/Organization must be located outside of Colorado’s urbanized areas. Website to check for this is http://ims2.missouri.edu/rac/amirural/, click on the CMS – Rural Health Clinics Program. (You don’t have to be a  rural  health clinic, the 2 programs just use the same definition.) Places in urban counties are sometimes eligible, for example, Brighton and Fruita, so it’s good to double check.

Department of Health Care Policy and Financing October issue of At a Glance

This publication provides updates from the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. October 2010 At a Glance

Kaiser Permanente Colorado and the Colorado Health Institute partner to conduct a first-of-its-kind state-level assessment of the magnitude and characteristics of this issue among primary care providers who serve low income and other vulnerable Coloradans.

Is lack of access to specialty services a problem for patients of your clinic? If you have not already responded, this is your opportunity to describe why or why not. This online survey is designed for medical directors of safety net clinics (including community-funded clinics, family medicine centers [residency programs], federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics) to help identify barriers to specialty care referrals as well as possible strategies for improvement. Other types of safety net providers may be included in future phases of the project.

The survey is administered on-line and consists of 31 questions. It takes about 20 minutes to complete. Results will be shared with survey respondents. Data compiled from the survey will also serve to inform stakeholders and community leaders, and may provide guidance for health care reform implementation. Although much of the survey is quantitative in nature, included are sections that allow you to describe the specialty care access challenges patients face in your own words, and they encourage you to take the time to provide us case examples as appropriate. Note that they will also follow up with a clinic administrator or data manager to ask four short items about patient and visit volume at your clinic.

Statement of Confidentiality

Your participation is voluntary and is critical to our understanding of access to specialty care issues in Colorado. All of your responses will remain confidential. They will combine your responses with the responses provided by others and report results in the aggregate only. They will first gain your permission if citing individual responses or quotations in future publications.

Please submit only one completed survey per clinical site. For example, if ABC Community Health Center operates two clinics, the survey would be completed by the medical director at each clinic. Although the decision of who responds to the survey is at your discretion, they request that it be a clinician (preferably medical or clinical director) who is knowledgeable about clinical referrals at your clinic. Feel free to solicit input from your colleagues to inform your responses to the survey.

Instructions for completing the survey:

To begin taking the survey, click on this link or paste it into your browser:

http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/329822/1d08/

At the end of the survey, click the Submit button.

If you are completing the survey for an additional clinic(s), click on the appropriate link below:

Second clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334254/3153/

Third clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334255/21e8/

Fourth clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334256/19f3/

Fifth clinic link: http://www.keysurvey.com/survey/334257/156e/

They request that you complete the survey by COB on Monday, November 15, 2010 as the results are due to Kaiser Permanente in early December.