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Events Calendar

July - September 2004
Newsletter

Pharmacy Membership Status: As of June 29^th we have received signed letters of intent/interest from 197 pharmacies including 418 pharmacists from all around the state of Minnesota (see map insert). Given this response, the MRHC Board has instructed our attorney to request the necessary written approval from the appropriate state and federal agencies, and asked him to draft changes to MRHC articles & bylaws necessary to add a new member class if/when approval comes. These article and by-law changes will need to be voted on by current members via mail-in ballots. If all goes smoothly, our anticipated response and start-up timeline is approximately 2 - 3 months.

 Interest among rural independent pharmacies is very high. I was at a state meeting recently and they mentioned we may be their last best hope in their fight with the Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs or as they like to say Profits Beyond Measure). There are many other services we could provide them including group purchase opportunities, quality assurance, and collaborative projects between clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies. If all those currently interested join they will contribute $167,200 per year in dues and a one time purchase of $104,500 in stock.

AHRQ HIT Grant: We have yet to hear on whether we were awarded the $200,000 Health Information Technology planning grant. I was originally told we should hear by July 2004 but now understand we may not hear until August or September 2004. We will inform people as soon as we know anything. 

Advantage Collection Professionals: We have received a very competitive group price for their collection services that is available to all of our members. If you are interested, contact us and we will forward to you the information. We are also in the process of getting another bid for collection services from Recovery Resources in Bismarck ND. Recovery Resources is at least partially owned by Medi-Sota and we hope we can offer a competitive bid from them soon. If nothing else, we recommend members use two collection agencies to encourage competition between the two by allowing members to play them off each other to ensure maximum performance and cost effectiveness on your accounts.

West Central Healthcare Purchasing Alliance: We are slowly progressing towards the intended development of a healthcare purchasing alliance with its own health insurance plan offering. We are at the point of determining whether to pursue an Accountable Provider Network (APN) or pursue a “private label” product from an existing health plan. The purchasing alliance has just hired a Coordinator as its first full-time staff person.

Payer audit completed: A payer audit was completed and distributed to participating members in April 2004. This analysis included information from 11 hospital members and 10 clinic members with sample remittances from 19 health plans and payors. The results showed that most health plans were paying correctly per contract. We were able to identify some patterns that prompted one health plan to agree to pay us $67,237 for underpayments to 24 members. It was also helpful to remind payors that we are verifying payments thus keeping them on their toes. We plan to do another small payer audit to verify that all of our members are being paid what recently signed contracts say we should be paid. We intend to make a payer audit become an annual service to our members.

Minnesota Rural Health Cooperative Meeting Schedule

• July 1           Contracting Committee Meeting
• July 4           Independence Day
• July 19        Credentialing Teleconference
• July 21        Quality Council Quarterly Meeting
• July 22        Board of Directors Meeting
   
• August 4       Medi-Sota
• August 5       Contracting Committee Meeting
• August 23    Credentialing Teleconference
• August 26    Board of Directors Meeting
   
• September 1  Medi-Sota
• September 2  Contracting Committee Meeting
• September 6  Labor Day
• September 14Clinic Managers Meeting
• September 20Credentialing Teleconference
• September 23Board of Directors Meeting
   
• October 6    Medi-Sota
• October 7    Contracting Committee Meeting
• October 20   Quality Council Quarterly Meeting
• October 21   Compliance Quarterly Meeting
• October 25   Credentialing Teleconference
• October 28   Board of Directors Meeting
• October 31   Daylight Savings time ends
   
• November 3   Medi-Sota
• November 4   Contracting Committee Meeting
• November 9   Clinic Managers Meeting
• November 15 Credentialing Teleconference
• November 18 Board of Directors Meeting

Health Plan Contracting: We will no longer go into detail on our contracts other than sending a hard copy or CD-ROM to interested members. We had some problems recently with several of our health plans practically hacking into our website to access what we thought was password protected information. This included our newsletters that previously may have been too detailed for public consumption. We have disabled our website until we can guarantee the web site security. Please contact Chuck for any contract specifics.



2004 Board Members

• Brendon Cullinan, M.D., Montevideo Clinic - Chair
• Larry Grong, D.O., Lac qui Parle Clinic– Madison– Vice Chair
• Leroy Meyering, CFO, Rice Memorial Hospital – Secretary /Treasurer
• Glenn Haugo, Administrator, Johnson Memorial Health Services - Dawson
• Mark Huntington, M.D., Northside Medical Center – Ortonville
• Romulo Kabatay, M.D., Appleton Medical Clinic
• Dale Kruger, Administrator , Tyler Healthcare Center
• Richard Mulder, M.D., Ivanhoe Clinic
• Tom Richter, Administrator, Madison Lutheran Home (Hospital)
• Alan Roiseland M.D., Family Practice Medical Center-Willmar
• James Schulte, Administrator, Redwood Area Hospital
   

Hospital-CAHPS MRHC member survey: We are considering creating and performing CAHPS (Consumer Assessment of Health Plans) surveys for our hospital members to help them prepare for the time when CMS performs their CAHPS survey and posts the results on a public website. A vendor recently approached MRHC with this idea and we have expressed interest in a group bid which we have not yet received.  Anecdotally we have heard that this vendor charges $8,000 per survey per member but we think we could do this survey for little or nothing. We contacted AHRQ and have requested permission to use the CMS CAHPS survey but haven’t received word yet. This topic will be discussed at the July 21, 2004,  hospital quality meeting.

Group Purchasing Options: We have been meeting with representatives of Kreisers and Owens Minor to determine which one would give our members, that are also members of the AmeriNet GPO, the best possible deal. Both have expressed a willingness to bundle purchases from all participating members to put all in the best possible pricing tier and produce the best possible cash rebate payment (e.g. if 6 members buy 5, 20, 10, 50, 20, 15 of some product we would get pricing based on one purchase of 120). We are also scheduled to meet with the Rural Health Alliance that appears to have a special arrangement with AmeriNet allowing them improved pricing and further reductions in shipping costs. Lastly, we will be taking another look at VHA and Novation to see how they compare with AmeriNet. We will get information out on this as we know more.

Mega CME opportunity: We will be sending out a survey to members to see if there is interest in a major CME opportunity. The idea is to have a local two full-day program that provides about 20 CMEs. We have had mixed results providing evening events with small amounts of CMEs available. The feedback we received prompted us to try this approach. Look for a survey to arrive soon.