The North Carolina Medical Society’s (NCMS) Community Practitioner Program (CPP) held its annual meeting on May 3 in Raleigh.  Accountable care was the theme of this year’s meeting. Participants learned about the benefits of joining accountable care organizations, which are physician-led, value driven models, and heard from Bo Bobbitt of the Smith Anderson law firm, the author of the Toward Accountable Care Consortium’s ACO Toolkits.  Access this valuable resource, and learn more about the TAC Consortium here.

Chip Baggett, NCMS director of legislative relations, presented the group with an update on current medical legislation. Melanie Phelps, associate executive director for NCMS Foundation, and Franklin Walker, director of programs for NCMS Foundation, also spoke at the event.

Community practitioner Gandhari Loomis said the lectures about ACOs were useful and timely. “It was helpful to hear about ACOs from the perspective of someone who is actually doing it,” she said. “My impression was that very few people in the audience knew what an accountable care organization was or how it pertained to them.”

CPP was created 24 years ago to attract primary care practitioners to economically distressed areas of the state. Physicians, physician assistants and family practitioners serve in the program for five years and receive up to $70,000 to pay for their medical school loans over that time period. The program is open to individuals who have completed their residency.

Other attendees included: Robin Cummings, director of the Office of Rural Health; Chuck Wilson, former NCMS president; Dev Sangvai, NCMS president-elect; Terri Gonzalez, NCMS Foundation director for practice improvement; Elaine Ellis Stone, NCMS director of communications and marketing; and Charis Kirk, NCMS member resource coordinator.

To learn more about CPP and how to get involved, click here.