CMS is expected to issue the final rule on MACRA in November.

Open Enrollment starts for the 2017 ACA coverage season. First day to sign up, renew a plan, or choose a new one for coverage that can start as early as Jan. 1, 2017.

A public workshop to discuss “strategies that can be taken by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and others to address the opioid epidemic while taking into account the needs of pain patients.”

David R. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H., will be the featured speaker at the 2016 Fairfield University Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies Annual Lecture. The event will take place on Nov. 9 at 5:30 p.m. at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. Dr. Williams’ lecture, entitled “Social Inequalities in Health and What Can We Do About Them,” is sponsored by the McKeen Fund.

More than 100 million Americans struggle with chronic pain, according to one Institute of Medicine estimate, at an annual cost of as much as $635 billion in treatment and lost productivity. Further, the misuse of potent opioid painkillers, while increasing risk of addiction and abuse, can confuse the conversation around appropriate chronic pain management. This Forum brings together a panel of experts to discuss the causes, treatment and impact of chronic pain, while exploring the neuroscience behind the pain experience.

This event features speakers from a range of institutes, including University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Novartis and National Cancer Institute, among others, and “will focus on cancer treatment, palliative care, and survivorship care in low-resource areas.”

On Nov. 8, Americans will elect a new president and the members of the 115th Congress. Join the Alliance for Health Reform for a look ahead at the health policy agenda for the coming year.

On National Rural Health Day, the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health will host a series of webinars. Each thirty-minute web session will cover relevant topics specific to rural issues, including one that addresses how rural Americans will be impacted by policy changes to the Affordable Care Act as a result of a new administration. Other sessions will cover the expanding role of non-physicians in rural communities, as well as how patient data collection impacts population health management.

The New Jewish Home’s 14th annual Palliative Care Conference, Being Comfortable with Life and Death: Effective Models of Advance Care Planning and Medical Orders, will explore the most recent models in training clinicians in and reimbursement for end of life conversations. With an estimated 50% of Americans over 85 suffering from dementia, elderly patients’ ability to make decisions has become one of the most important issues in geriatric care today.