FROM THE DARK REPORT and DARK DAILY: Negotiating Pathology Part A Reimbursement with Hospitals: Why the Performance-Based Approach Opens the Door to Increased Value

Win-win breakthrough aligns hospitals and pathologists in Pathology Part A Agreements that deliver added value!

YOUR PRESENTERS:

Robert H. Tessier, Senior Reimbursement Consultant, HBP Financial Services Group, Ltd.

Saraswathi Nair, M.D., Chair, Pathology Department, Norwalk Hospital

Justin M. Clark (Moderator), Director of Operations, THE DARK REPORT, Spicewood, TX

Wednesday April 21, 2010 at 1:00pm EST.

Few pathology groups are happy with their current pathology Part A Professional Service agreements. That's because, too often over the past decade, hospitals and health systems have continually trimmed reimbursements to their pathologists for essential Part A services. As a consequence, in many hospitals, Part A Professional Service contracts fail to reimburse pathologists for even the basic cost of these services. Now there's a better way to negotiate your pathology group's Part A Professional Service contract with your hospital/health system administrators. The innovators using this approach are earning higher reimbursements and report that both pathologists and hospitals are more satisfied with the increased value that results for both parties.

Learn more about this important new strategy when you attend a special DARK REPORT and DARKDAILY.COM audio conference "Negotiating Pathology Part A Reimbursement with Hospitals: Why the Performance-Based Approach Opens the Door to Increased Value" on Wednesday, April 21, 2010.

To understand how performance-based Part A contracting works, listen as Saraswathi Nair, M.D., Chair of the Pathology Department at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, provides details of the successful program she started at Norwalk Hospital. Find out how she negotiated increased Part A support from her hospital using a well-documented list of accomplishments by her pathology team. And get the tips and strategies you need to implement a performance-based pathology Part A Professional Service arrangement with your hospital or health system. Along with Dr. Nair, you'll hear from Robert Tessier who helped develop this strategy. As the Senior Reimbursement Consultant at HBP Financial Services Group, he played a key role in helping pathologists gather compelling data about their time spent on Part A professional duties and the value that accrues to the hospital as a result of their efforts.

He was instrumental in providing documentation of the financial benefits that proved persuasive to hospital administrators. During this audio conference, Tessier will present details of the steps involved in setting up a performance-based system to help your hospital's administrators better evaluate the job your pathology team is doing. This is the opposite of the "lay-low" strategy because it calls for pathologists to step up and provide a detailed list of benefits to the hospital every day.

Too often, pathology Part A Professional Service agreements with hospitals and health systems turn out poorly for the pathologists. Over the past decade, hospital accountants have regular reduced-and in some cases, even eliminated-payments to pathologists for Part A services. A performance-based pathology Part A Professional Service contract is your pathology group's most effective way to stop this trend, and reverse it in a way that generates a win-win for both the hospital and the pathologists. The performance-based pathology Part A Professional Service contract now being used is a powerful tool that changes the fundamental relationship between pathologists and the hospital. Now, instead of basing Part A reimbursements on the amount of time you spend on the job, you can base it on how well you do that job! It's a strategy and tool set that will revolutionize the way you negotiate your Part A reimbursement.

Whether you're a hospital-based pathology chief, a pathology practice administrator or consultant, a hospital administrator, or anyone who negotiates Part A reimbursements, you'll want to make time in your busy schedule to participate in this invaluable 90-minute session.

Find out how to set goals for your department, and how meeting those goals will help you get the support you deserve. Be proactive: When you show hospital administrators that your department is serious about solving problems and saving money, it creates the opportunity to negotiate a Part A Professional Service agreement that appropriately reimburses pathologists while giving hospitals objectively measured documentation of the pathologists' value.

Register for this audio conference to hear this never-before-shared information. Master the insights about this exciting new strategy for getting the most out of your Part A Professional Service agreement. For pathologists, it's the best way to get the recognition-and the compensation-you deserve. And for hospital administrators, it's a chance to develop a partnership with your pathologists that will provide your hospital with results you can measure-not just hours spent in the lab.

For one low price—just $195 (through 4/9/10; $245 thereafter)—you and your entire team can take part in this fast-paced, insightful audio conference. Best of all, you’ll be able to connect personally with either of the panelists when we open up the phone lines for live Q&A.

Here's just some of what you’ll learn during this in-depth 90-minute conference:

• How to educate your administration about the Part A value that pathologists provide.

• The most effective ways to educate your administration about the Part A value that pathologists provide.

• How to work with your hospital's finance team to quantify lab department improvements and results.

• Simple steps to design a time-study format customized for your hospital.

• How to determine whether a laboratory department fund can be used to seed innovative programs.

• Identifying the importance of "dividend" re-investment by the pathologists.

• How to use the partnership model with academic institutions, community hospitals and commercial laboratories to increase value and pathology Part A reimbursement.

• Using websites, collateral and sales to provide leadership and financial support for marketing.

…and much more!

How to Register:

1. Online

2. Call toll free: 800-560-6363.

Your audio conference registration includes:

*A site license to attend the conference (invite as many people as you can fit around your speakerphone at no extra charge)

*Downloadable PowerPoint presentations from our speakers

*A full transcript emailed to you soon after the conference

*The opportunity to connect directly with our speaker during the audience Q&A session

Register Now! Or for more information, call us toll-free at 800-560-6363.

Distinguished Faculty:

Robert Tessier is a Senior Consultant at HBP Services, a management firm with a focus on hospital-based pathologists. He has more than 30 years of experience with hospital negotiations, first with radiologists and since 1982, with pathologists. His consultations have focused on the need for a detailed evaluation of Part A support in an environment of controlling hospital costs. HBP's clients include pathology groups, hospitals and medical schools. Mr. Tessier has recently been helping pathologists and their hospitals address the value provided by those willing to present their results in addition to time spent. He has also been asked to help develop a performance-based model that makes it easier to justify the hundreds of thousands of dollars that an individual hospital pays for Part A services. Mr. Tessier also has experience with third-party negotiations, hospital joint ventures for histology and cytology, billing system audits and a wide range of areas that help pathology practices achieve effective management.

Saraswathi Nair, M.D. is Chair of the Pathology Department at Norwalk Hospital.

ACCENT® Continuing Education Credit The American Association of Clinical Chemistry (AACC) designates this program for a maximum of 1.5 ACCENT® credit hours towards the AACC Clinical Chemist’s Recognition Award. AACC is an approved provider of continuing education for clinical laboratory scientists in the states of California, Florida, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.