Maria presented the class as a part of the professional development outreach available through the Council on the Global Integration of Healthcare, a nonprofit research and education association. Through this program, in keeping with its mission, the CGIH offers a speakers' bureau staffed by members of the Advisory Board of the Council who agree to provide training and development for hospitals and physicians worldwide at a modest honorarium and coverage of expenses.
The class covers an introduction to managed care concepts, organizational structures and programs. During the class, she explained the organizational differences between HMOs, PPOs, Consumer Driven Health Plans and other third-party healthcare reimbursement programs.
The curriculum then progressed to the various reimbursement systems including fee for service, case rate and capitation. The late morning continued with denials and appeals issues, and cost containment methods. Upon return from lunch, the group engaged in hands-on review of a typical "all payer" agreement, analyzing it line-by-line and discussing the effect of vague and ambiguous language and contract provisions.
This class was also conducted in Bangkok, Thailand for several hospitals in February. It is scheduled to be presented in several other countries throughout the world this year to prepare the providers for the inevitability of third-party insurance and employer healthcare reimbursement from the US. If you would like information on how to arrange to have this class presented through your national hospital association outside the United States, please contact the Maria Todd, President of CGIH at 800.727.4160.
Classes are available on a variety of topics including insurance billing, coding, accreditation preparation, service line development and pricing, marketing and website development, and managed care contracting.
In International Healthcare, Maria has been busy completing the manuscript on "The Medical Tourism Facilitator Handbook"( Productivity Press) and another book, titled "Medical Tourism Program Development" (Productivity Press) both due out in 2009 or early 2010. She has been lecturing on Medical Tourism and consulting in the Medical Tourism domain for several years.
