The 2024 legislative session was marked by significant victories for physicians and patients alike, showcasing the power of organized advocacy and the importance of legislative engagement including: 

Medical Liability  

Maintaining a stable liability climate and ensuring a culture of safety are longstanding CMS priorities. Both were under attack in 2024 as trial lawyers pursued ballot initiatives that would have eliminated non-economic damage caps for both medical and general liability and removed protections for confidential information including peer review. Aggressive CMS advocacy was done in concert with Coloradans Protecting Patient Access, COPIC, and others throughout the session, culminating in an end of session bill that protects patient access to care, safeguards the stable liability climate, preserves peer review, and avoided a costly ballot fight. The bill updates the non-economic damage caps over the next five years and creates a new wrongful death cap. 

Prior Authorization 

After years of work spurring from patient and physician concerns after hearing about barriers to care, an important bill was passed this year to benefit all Coloradans. The bill will extend prior auth approvals for longer periods of time, ensure greater transparency, and require health plans to create alternative programs for prior authorization. Get more details on the bill here.  

Scope of practice  

Ensuring safe and effective care depends upon highly trained, multi-disciplinary clinical teams led by physicians that work closely together. CMS successfully opposed bills that would have inappropriately expanded the scope of practice for non-physician health care providers, including empowering naturopaths to prescribe most schedule III-V prescription medications. 

Physician-Patient Relationships  

Ensuring strong physician-patient relationships built on trust that support individuals and families to promote the health, wellbeing, and autonomy of all Coloradans continues to be a cornerstone priority for CMS. We worked on bills to ensure that patients know what type of provider is actually treating them and ways to level the playing field between health plans and smaller physician practices. While those bills did not pass, these efforts were important steps to promoting transparency and fair processes in health care. 

Workforce Challenges 

Maintaining a strong workforce is pivotal responding to the immediate needs and lays the foundation for a more robust, resilient, and diverse health care workforce for Colorado’s future. This year we supported a bill to bolster the rural health care workforce by renewing funding for initiatives to recruit, train, and place health care providers in underserved regions. 

Future Directions 

CMS will continue to advocate for legislative and regulatory measures that enhance the health care system in Colorado, focusing on protecting patient safety and peer review, ensuring affordable, quality care, supporting physician-led care teams, and reducing administrative burdens. Make sure to maintain your CMS membership and watch for CMS members only legislative updates and insights newsletter, PolicyPulse. 

For further information, please contact: membership@cms.org.