Thursday's Information for Mississippi Family Physicians
MEDICAL ASSURANCE COMPANY OF MISSISSIPPI (MACM):
"MACM wants to support its insured Family Medicine practices. We are aware that insureds have the need and desire to use telemedicine to assist them in responding to the current Coronavirus crisis. Please be advised that MACM will insure Family Medicine Practices for the use of telemedicine, as long as the patient, established or new, is located within Mississippi at the time of the telemedicine encounter. When using telemedicine, we strongly urge you to consider good risk management practices,
which can be reviewed here
. If you plan to utilize telemedicine as described, then there is no need to notify MACM. This applies only during the current public health crisis."
GOVERNOR TATE REEVES EXECUTIVE ORDERS:
On Tuesday, March 24, Gov. Reeves’
Executive Order 1463
set a statewide standard in terms of social distancing and defining essential businesses to slow the spread and protect public health. The order establishes statewide parameters that local leaders on the front lines can build on to make decisions that are in the best interest of their communities.
On Thursday, March 26, Reeves held a press conference to clarify the executive order. Dr. Thomas Dobbs, State Health Officer, also spoke. You can watch Thursday's press conference
online on the
Family Medicine Strong in MS Facebook page
.
Please read the comments from Public Awareness Director Kristen Kern for highlights. MAFP will follow up with a overview tomorrow and will post.
MS STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH:
- The MSDH and the University of Mississippi Medical Center will open two drive-through COVID-19 testing sites for one day only on Friday, March 27. Locations are (1) Coahoma Expo Center, 1150 Wildcat Drive, Clarksdale, and (2) Lewisburg High School, 1755 Craft Road in Olive Branch. These sites will be similar to the one opened earlier this week at the Mississippi Fairgrounds in Jackson, seeking to screen those with symptoms. Individuals are required to go through a telehealth screening by either calling 601-496-7200 or downloading the CSpire Health UMMC Vitual COVID-19 Triage smartphone app.
- Alert issued Thursday regarding the postponement of elective surgical procedures in compliance with the CMS and CDC. It says "However we do realize that there are different circumstances that require clinical judgement when deciding whether it is appropriate to delay a given surgery or procedure. To that end we defer to the clinical judgement of a physician, taking in good faith that the decision is made in the context of the needs of the community. We also strongly recommend that all physicians and healthcare providers in every field delay non-urgent clinical visits. We recommend that any visit that can be safely delayed for several weeks be delayed at this time."
CDC CLINICIAN OUTREACH AND COMMUNICATION ACTIVITY (COCA):
Invites all health care professionals to a Friday afternoon conference call on
'Underlying Medical Conditions and People at Higher Risk for COVID-19
' (postponed from Tuesday). It will take place Friday, March 27 from 1-2 pm Central.
You can join by the Zoom app by clicking this link
- or you can go to the
COCA Facebook page.
AMERICAN ACADEMY OF FAMILY PHYSICIANS
:
- This week AAFP hosted a virtual town hall on the AAFP Facebook page about telemedicine. Following the call, AAFP issued a page on telehealth including helpful links. You can watch the town hall on the AAFP's Facebook page.
- You may not be aware of AAFP's message board specifically about COVID-19 and the challenges family physicians are facing. It's called the AAFP COVID-19 Rapid Response Member Exchange and you can choose to receive each message as it is posted, or as a digest at the end of the day. Right now there are almost 700 members and hundreds of posts. Just today, physicians are sharing their first experiences with telehealth and telemedicine payments.
AMERICAN BOARD OF FAMILY MEDICINE
: ABFM has
issued a statement
about residents and board certification.
Mississippi's Coronavirus Hotline is now being staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call 1-877-978-6453.
***
HEALTH ALERTS
: If you would like to receive MS State Department of Health update calls and notices, sign up for the
MS Health Alert Network
.
ALMOST-DAILY NEWS ROUNDUP
: MAFP staff puts out a morning News Roundup with links to the most important articles you need to know about. To be added to the list to receive the News Roundup, e-mail
Kristen Kern
.
OUR WEBSITE
: Please continue to check the
MAFP Coronavirus page
for updated information and links to important resources.
MAFP will continue to send updates and resources as we receive them and we will add them to our page above.
MAFP
755 Avignon Drive
Ridgeland MS 39157
(601) 853-3302
