NCMS Summer Voice: President’s Letter

Dear NCMS Members,

We hope you’ve had a wonderful summer, full of family time, vacation, and fun.

The Society has remained active both in events, holding our Summer Beach Party at Pelican Lakes in Windsor on August 13th, as well as planning advocacy, social, and educational activities for the fall.

Following the FBI-Mental Health Forum in May, a list of action items was developed, including an effort to improve communication between law enforcement at the Emergency Department, efforts to better study the effects of mental health support for at-risk patients, improving primary care screening questionnaires, as well as enhanced efforts of the Society to engage with local community partners. Just to name a few. While the public health issue of gun violence is complicated and multi-faceted, the Society is dedicated to doing what we can to help mitigate the problem which affects every member of our community.

To this end, we invite all members to a planned CME event this fall on October 25th, where agents from the FBI will present on mental health-related issues for at-risk patients, which we hope continues the conversation on how healthcare can best contribute to reducing violence by providing enhanced support.

The Society has also been active on the advocacy front, taking a stance that supports the autonomy of physicians when it comes to reproductive healthcare, as well as actively pursuing legislation that protects the integrity of neurological data collected by private companies. These are just two items in the broader scope of issues that we’ll take up as we move into next year’s elections, with continued pushes on streamlining prior authorization, liability caps, fair reimbursement, scope of practice protections, and broader public health efforts — the latter upon which we would like to become especially more proactive at the state level.

Our advocacy efforts don’t mean anything without the amplification of your voices, so we encourage members to reach out with all their ideas and issues on the aforementioned and beyond. Also, we encourage members to donate to the Colorado Medical Political Action Committee (COMPAC), which supports candidates who amplify physician and patient-friendly stances on issues at the Capitol. The link to donate can be found here:

https://members.cms.org/contribute

We also listened to the results of the all-member survey last year, which asked for more advocacy and social events, combining these wishes with an up-coming bowling and laser tag afternoon in Fort Collins on Saturday, September 9th, with a COMPAC fundraising option for those who attend. We look forward to seeing you there!

Thank you for your continued support of all the diverse and wonderful activities of the Society, and as always, for your steadfast support of the health of your patients and our region. Looking forward to continuing the good work with you all as we move into fall!

All the best,

Sean Pauzauskie, MD

President, Northern Colorado Medical Society

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