CMS’ 2024 legislative session was a monumental year for advancing your priorities and defending medicine

Success by the numbers:
–1,822 advocacy messages sent to legislators by CMS members and practice staff.
–38 positions taken on bills by the CMS Council on Legislation and 62 bills monitored by staff.
–14 meetings of the Council on Legislation before and during the session.

HB24-1472 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1472): Raise Damage Limit Tort Actions modernizes Colorado’s medical and general liability laws, maintains liability caps and preserves peer review, while avoiding a costly ballot fight. This bill was introduced and passed in the final week of the session in place of SB24-130.

HB24-1149 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1149) Prior Authorization Requirements Alternatives passed and is awaiting signature by the governor. This three-year effort culminated in a law that will place more health care decisions in the hands of patients and physicians, including extending prior auth approvals from 180 days to a full calendar year and increasing approval time frames for chronic medications to three years for certain situations, prohibiting denials that were approved but require additional care during surgery, and requiring the development of alternative programs for prior auth for medical services and medications. See the detailed analysis here (https://fi les.constantcontact.com/42cad56c001/8e5948dc-c606-408b-9ab1-fec6ed7cb18c.pdf). CMS’s Health Can’t Wait campaign was critical to pass the bill, collecting stories from patients and physicians.

HB24-1171 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1171) Naturopathic Doctors Formulary was defeated; the bill would have given naturopaths the ability to prescribe most schedule III-V drugs. If this bill returns in the future, then CMS will continue to fight for patient safety and against inappropriate scope of practice expansion for naturopaths.

SB24-163 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-163) Arbitration of Health Insurance Claims is a bill CMS supported but that was ultimately postponed indefinitely. A few years ago, Colorado passed legislation on out-of-network claims, sometimes known as surprise bills. CMS does not support unethical billing practices. This bill, which came on the heels of years of battles with health plans, solved some of this issue. But it failed to address the inability for a physician to batch out-of-network claims. This helps huge health plans to game the system by either forcing take-it-or-leave-it, severely discounted contracts (20%-40%) or purposely terminating contracts with practices to send them out-of-network knowing that the current arbitration process unfairly hurts physicians. The importance of this issue remains in spite of the demise of the bill. See fact sheet: https://coloradomedicalsociety.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/PolicyAdvocacy/EaAKQHqWG3RNho9czEunOfoBfKMITx8Pt2Ccb7Xbf78viw?rtime=3_lXCxdx3Eg).

HB24-1014 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1014) Deceptive Trade Practice Significant Impact Standard was a redo of a bill CMS similarly defeated last year. Had it passed, the bill would have increased liability exposure for physicians by finding automatically that there has been a “public impact” based solely on evidence of an unfair trade practice. Physicians would be liable for treble damages and attorney fees.

Key bills were passed to support continued work on the opioid epidemic, including getting Naloxone into schools,
(HB24-1003 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1003)), creating more harm reduction policies to support better health by those with substance use disorders (HB24-1037 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1037)), and expanding treatment for substance use disorders (HB24-1045 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1045)).

SB24-082 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-082) Patient’s Right to Provider Identification is another bill CMS supported that was postponed indefinitely. Over the past few years there has been an alarming increase in inappropriate attempts to expand the scope of practice for non-physician providers. This bill (fact sheet) aimed to help patients understand what type of provider was treating them. As CMS President Omar Mubarak, MD, MBA, noted in testimony before the Senate Health & Human Services Committee, “Patients deserve the right to know who is treating them and what their qualifications and levels of training are before they can safely consent to treatment.” While the bill failed to pass this year, ensuring transparency about care to inform patient decision-making will continue to be important.

The CMS advocacy team secured crucial amendments to HB24-1153 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1153)
Physician Continuing Education: Instead of a mandated 40 hours of CME required every two years, with 12 of those hours dedicated to reproductive health, the bill now includes 30 required hours of CME that can be met through national board certification. The Colorado Medical Board will conduct stakeholding to consider whether specific CME topics should be required for physicians.

SB24-062 (https://www.leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-062) Prohibit Attorney Fees on Personal Injury Interest was killed in committee. Patients should get the timely awards they are owed from a lawsuit. CMS Strongly supported this bill that aimed to put an end to the longstanding trial lawyer practice of delaying action on cases because they make more money by claiming 9%interest per annum on damages from the date the cause of an action accrued to the date the judgment is satisfied.

HB24-1058 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb24-1058) Protect Privacy of Biological Data was signed into law. This first-in-the-world legislation protects the privacy of individuals’ personal biological data, including neural data that is collected by devices now and in the future. Northern Colorado neurologist Sean Pauzauskie, MD, championed this bill following a concern raised during a patient visit – demonstrating how we can work with patients to create positive change.

Workforce capacity issues, especially in rural areas of Colorado, have been a big problem. CMS proudly supported a bill (SB24-221 (https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-221)) to expand the Colorado Rural Health-Care Workforce Initiative
(https://www.cms.org/articles/cover-building-the-workforce-of-the-future) to increase the number of health care professionals practicing in rural counties. The bill passed on the last day of 2024 legislative session.

Categories:

Communications (https://www.cms.org/articles/category/communications),

ASAP (https://www.cms.org/articles/category/asap),

Legislative Updates (https://www.cms.org/articles/category/legislative-updates)

Colorado Medical Society
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P: (720) 859-1001
www.cms.org

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