The North Carolina Practice Improvement Collaborative Conference will focus on Prevention Strategies for Stemming the Prescription Drug Abuse Epidemic on Thursday, June 16 from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the McKimmon Center in Raleigh. Get more information on the nationally known speakers and register here.


Providers’ Clinical Support System will offer a webinar on June 21 from noon to 1 p.m. on “Addiction, Overdose and Suicide: Preventing Deaths From Drug Self-Intoxication.” This webinar will review the proposed death sub-category, “death from drug self-intoxication,” as a surveillance strategy for improving accurate detection of a preventable death. Clinical translations of this concept, including empirical opportunities to elicit self-harm/suicide risk and to intervene with patients and families seeking treatment in a variety of clinical practice settings, will be presented. Register here.


Join the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance (NCHICA) on June 22 at the Research Triangle Foundation for a forum on Quality Reporting. The topics include: Leveraging Transparent Reporting for Quality Improvement, Transitioning to Electronic Clinical Quality Measures, and a MACRA overview. The registration fee is $50 NCHICA members/$75 non-members/$25 students. Click here for further details.


The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) invites the public to join the final listening sessions in the ongoing webinar series about the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) proposed in the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).

  • MIPS: Clinical Practice Improvement Activities (CPIA) Performance Category Overview, June 22, from noon to 1 p.m. Register here.
  • MIPS Scoring Overview, June 17 and June 24, from noon to 1 p.m. Register by visiting the June 17 or June 24 registration webpages.

The 129th Annual Scientific Session of The Old North State Medical Society “Integrative Medicine: The Future of Healthcare” will be held June 24th-25th, 2016 at The North Raleigh Hilton in Raleigh. The Session provides ONSMS members, physicians and medical professionals with up-to-date education and peer networking opportunities. Included are a Pre-Conference Training Session to qualify for prescribing Buprenorphine and a broad selection of presentations and breakout sessions, providing an opportunity for up to 22 CMEs for participation at the Conference. For more information, visit the ONSMS website.


28th Annual Fall Foliage Cancer Conference, “Update on Melanoma and Gastrointestinal Cancers,” will be held Oct. 21-22 at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. More information and registration available here.


MAHEC, working with the North Carolina Academy of Family Physicians, The Governor’s Institute on Substance Abuse and Project Lazarus: A Project of CCNC, is offering A Guide to Rational Opioid Prescribing for Chronic Pain, an online education course. The course is designed for all prescribing health care practitioners who are interested in an overview of the rational prescribing approaches for persons with chronic pain disorders. It will fulfill the North Carolina Medical Board’s requirement of at least one hour of continuing education designed specifically to address prescribing practices for chronic pain management. The course cost is $15 for the first 6 months. Offers 3 hours of AAFP, AMA/AAFP Equivalency, and CDE; www.mahec.net/opioid


Watch seven new MLN Connects videos on the Medicare Quality Reporting Programs, focusing on the requirements you need to meet in 2016.  For those who participated in the webinars held in February, the information in these modules mirrors the information shared on those calls:
Introduction: Medicare Quality Reporting Programs: What Eligible Professionals Need to Know in 2016. Run time: 15 minutes.
Module 1: Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) Preview. Run time: 6 minutes.
Module 2: 2016 Incentive Payments and 2018 Payment Adjustments. Run time: 9 minutes.
Module 3: 2016 Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS) Updates. Run time: 20 minutes.
Module 4: 2018 Value-Based Payment Modifier (VM) Policies. Run time: 17 minutes.
Module 5: Physician Compare Updates in 2016. Run time: 6 minutes.
Module 6: Meaningful Use of Certified Electronic Health Record Technology (CEHRT) in 2016. Run time: 16 minutes.