The Managed Care Institute Announces "Analyzing and Negotiating Managed Care Agreements" Seminar

Dec. 29, 2011 - PRLog -- The Managed Care Institute announced today that it will be offering a hands-on workshop focusing on Analyzing and Negotiating Managed Care Agreements. The course will be held on Thursday, February 9th through Friday, February 10th from 9am until 4pm (MST). The course will be held at the Pinnacle Club on the 37th Floor of 555 17th Street, Denver, Colorado adjacent to the Grand Hyatt Downtown Denver.

The course is paced for probing questions and problem-solving discussions and  includes deep analysis of tough managed care contracting issues and denial prevention techniques for hospitals and physicians.  

The course will be offered four times this year in February, May, August and October, 2012. Registration is limited to only 24 students per session. Beginning negotiators and analysts should register for the 3-day workshop offered in January, April, July, and October 2012. Other courses in Direct to Employer Contracting, IPA, PHO, ACO Organization, Denials and Appeals Management Techniques, and a number of short courses and webinars will also be available as the Institute finalizes additional instructor contracts and course schedules in coming weeks.

The course is taught by Maria Todd, MHA PhD, an experienced hospital and medical group/IPA/PHO contract negotiator, and former provider relations coordinator at a large HMO, who is trained as a certified mediator and health law paralegal.  Todd is Acting Executive Director of the Institute and the author of 9 health administration reference books including, the Managed Care Contracting Handbook, 2nd Edition: Planning & Negotiating the Managed Care Relationship  (ISBN: 978-1563273698, released March 2009) and The Physician Employment Contract Handbook, Second Edition: A Guide to Structuring Equitable Arrangements (ISBN: 978-1439813164, released Feb 2011).

Todd is also the author of  two other books on physician-hospital integration, including IPA, PHO, and MSO Development Strategies: Building Successful Provider Alliances (HFMA Healthcare Financial Management Series) (ISBN: 978-0786311194, released January 1997) and Physician Integration: Refocusing the Lens (ISBN: 978-1439813089, to be released in 2012).  

Her two medical tourism titles, Medical Tourism Facilitator's Handbook (ISBN: 978-1439812839, released November 2011) and Handbook of Medical Tourism Program Development: Developing Globally Integrated Health Systems (ISBN: 978-1439813140 release December 2011) have been enjoying record sales and have been difficult to keep in stock at Amazon.com.

The hands-on workshop will teach participants how to build contracting strategies, financial models, and locate the looming perils and pitfalls in today’s volatile managed care and healthcare reimbursement reform marketplace.  In addition, detailed checklist of contract language, sample business rules and a model payer report card will be supplied with presentation materials. Also included in the class materials is a signed copy of her latest Managed Care Contracting Handbook, 2nd Edition, which includes additional materials on a CD included with the book.

Throughout the course, Dr Todd will  include proven successful and time saving techniques she uses daily. She'll guide students through the hands-on assembly of working tools they will build and use in class on their laptops. Many of the tools are built within readily available software applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel. She'll also share four proprietary Visual Basic macros that will speed up the contract analysis process, modeling, accuracy and efficiency by about 600%.

"It has been harder for American healthcare providers to find post-graduate, professional training in managed care for several years,” states Maria Todd.  “Most of the long established professional associations have refocused almost all their attention on healthcare reform, accountable care organizations (ACOs) and other preoccupations leaving managed care and revenue cycle training behind. Unlike finance majors, new workforce entrants in managed care don't  often receive the specialized training in colleges and university MBA and MHA programs. Worse yet, they may be replacing a predecessor who's skills may have been rusty, ineffective, disorganized,  inadequate or incompetent. Many find to their exasperation, that the contracts have not been maintained, rates are set at untenable levels out of line with market conditions and in desperate need of renegotiation, and while the new hire may have been authorized to do something about it, they don't know how or what to do or even how to open the discussion with payers to their advantage."

At the Institute, we offer the training and professional and post-graduate real-world training where students can choose to just focus on a particular skill such as hospital managed care contracting, physician managed care contracting, capitation, case rate development, physician integration, or direct-to-employer contracting. In some cases, the Managed Care Institute has been awarded an annual contract to provide all revenue management professional training and development solutions within the those respective departments.”

To sign up for the courses, please enroll at http://managedcareinstitute.com

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About Managed Care Institute, Inc.
Established in 2007, the Managed Care Institute has been a provider of managed care and revenue cycle training and professional development for healthcare organizations across North America and in Europe, Northern Africa, South American and Asia. The company’s experienced, professional trainers provide contracting and revenue cycle expertise to over 3000 healthcare organizations, medical groups and ancillary providers worldwide.