Health Care Innovation Challenge Announced

 To advance APA’s priorities of integrated health care and workforce development, we would like to call your attention to the new Health Care Innovation Challenge, which was recently announced by the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.  This major initiative will award up to $1 billion in grants to applicants who will implement the most compelling new models to deliver “better health, improved care, and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP [Children’s Health Insurance Program], particularly those with the highest health care needs.”  Applicants are encouraged to include new models of workforce development and deployment that efficiently support their service delivery model proposal, along with enhanced infrastructure to support more cost-effective, system-wide functioning. Individual grant awards will range from approximately $1 million to $30 million for a three-year period.  Funding will be directed to innovators who can deploy care improvement models within six months of the grant award through new or expanded efforts to serve new populations of patients, in conjunction (where possible) with other public and private sector partners.  Applications are open to providers, payers, local government, public-private partnerships, and multi-payer collaboratives.  Each project will be monitored for measurable improvements in quality of care and savings generated.

Potential applicants must submit a letter of intent by December 19, 2011, with applications due by January 27, 2012.  The anticipated award date is March 30, 2012.

To learn more about the Health Care Innovation Challenge and information about the application process, please read the Funding Opportunity Announcement.

To read an overview of the Health Care Innovation Challenge, including important deadlines, please read the Fact Sheet (PDF).

D-KEFS for sale

Delis-Kaplan Executive Functions System (D-KEFS) Complete Kit Box, as advertised in  Psych Corp catalogue.  Never used.  $330.00 plus shipping.  Please contact: Stanley Butts, Phone number 816-561-5556, Address:  800 W. 47th Street, Suite 514, Kansas City, MO 64112. 

Vote 10 for MOPA!

Dear fellow psychologists,

If you are also a member of APA, you should have ready received or will receive in the mail shortly your apportionmnet ballot from APA.  As I've mentioned in previous emails, by allotting all 10 of your votes to MOPA, you will give MOPA the greatest voice possible on APA's Council of Representatives.  If you've ever asked yourself what actions you can take that will have a direct impact on your daily practice, this is one of those actions. As we've seen with the BCBS KC rate cuts, at times we need APA to fight on our behalf. Also, a majority of MOPA's budget comes directly from CAPP grants which have recently been threatened. By voting all 10 votes to MOPA you will help sway budgetary decisions like this in the future and MOPA will be in a better position to remain financially solvent in order to serve our members better. 

VOTE 10 for MOPA!!!

Call for Application for the Michael Sullivan Diversity Scholarship Fund

The Michael Sullivan Diversity Scholarship Fund was created to provide financial assistance to support graduate student research projects in honor of Dr. Sullivan’s work with American Psychological Association, State, Provincial, and Territorial Psychological Associations and his commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Submission Deadlines: The deadline for the 2012  award is January 13, 2012  Proposals must be submitted electronically by 4:30pm (eastern) on Friday, January 13, 2012.    Proposals must be in Microsoft word or pdf format and follow the template included below.  Subject line should include “Michael Sullivan Diversity Scholarship Proposal- YOUR NAME”.  Send proposals to mranney@ohpsych.org.

For complete details, click here.

Member in the News

Vetta L. Sanders-Thompson was recently featured in Washington University's Record for her work in helping people access health care, Dr. Thompson is MOPA's Psychology in the Workplace Network (PWN) Representative.  To read the full article, click here.

Monthly Ad from APA Insurance Trust

To be taken directly to the APAIT website, click here.

CAPP Grant Update

From Melba Vasquez (President of APA):

The APAPO BoD and CAPP have worked collaboratively on the goal of assuring the 2011 level of funding for the Organizational Development, Legislative and Emergency grants in the 2012 CAPP budget. While it looks like the APAPO's anticipated income will be expanded through new funding streams, we are so early in the dues collection cycle that it is very difficult to predict Practice Assessment revenues at this time. We will have a better idea about this by the December Board meeting. Consequently, the APAPO Board believes it only prudent to adhere to the usual review date of December for approval of the CAPP budget. At this point the recommendation is for 2011 level funding for all three grant categories. We trust that the SPTAs, as c-6 organizations, will continue to assist their members in understanding the interrelatedness of the Practice Assessment and SPTA support of all kinds.

From Ellen McLean, our Executive Director:

The good news is that the APAPO board came to the table with funding options that will fully fund the Organizational Grants, the Legislative Grants and the Emergency grants at the 2011 levels.  

HOWEVER…. Since the practice assessments are coming in more slowly than projections, the budget (which has not yet been approved by the APA board) may need to be reviewed and corrected as the budget year gets underway.  

I want to stress the importance of contributing to the practice assessment.  This is an issue that we must all take ownership in, and the states need to work collaboratively with APAPO.  If you would like more information about the importance of the assessment and its relationship to the CAPP grants, please contact me (esmclean@mopsych.org).

Update on CAPP Grant funding

Click here for the summary of the outcome from the meeting held at the APA Convention in August between APAPO Board of Directors, CAPP (Committee for the Advancement of Professional Practice), Div. 31, CESPPA (Council of Executives of State and Provincial Psychological Associations) , CSPTR (Caucus of State, Provincial and Territorial Representatives), and SPTA (State, Provincial and Territorial Associations) Leaders.  Basically, CAPP stated that the APAPO Board of Directors had encouraged CAPP to reconsider these grant cuts.  As a result, CAPP held a conference call shortly after convention to reconsider these grant cuts. It was their decision to make no changes in their recommendation "at this time" although they may once again reconsider the cuts at a future time. 

Your President is now on Twitter!

Dear members, you can now follow me on Twitter and receive a tweet every time I update the blog. This is an easy way to stay informed of current MOPA activities and calls to action.Simply click the button below:

  
If you're having any trouble, you can manually follow me @DrRichMartielli

Free Twitter Training from APA

APA is offering 2 free webinars on learning to use Twitter.

It is open to APA and/or Missouri Psychological Association members whose aim is to help psychologists begin to use Twitter:

Twitter webinars:
The next Twitter Basics webinar will be Monday, Nov. 14 at 1 p.m. EST

(RSVP by filling out this quick form: http://bit.ly/APATwitter1)

The next Twitter Intermediate will be Wednesday, Nov. 9 at noon EST

(RSVP by filling out this quick form: http://bit.ly/APATwitter2)

Both of these webinars are technical overviews of how to understand and better use Twitter. You’ll need access to a phone line and an Internet connection for both calls.

Here’s what is covered in each call:

Twitter Basics

·         Send a message
·         Reply to a message
·         Look for your mentions
·         Retweet (also known as RT)

·         Share links

·         Change your account settings

If there's time, we'll show you some of the basics of hashtags, how to find followers and how to search.

Twitter Intermediate

(It’s not required that you completed the basics webinar, but you should have a comfortable understanding of Twitter and know how to do the items mentioned above.)

·              Craft a message that is more likely to get shared

·              Effectively use hashtags to discover content and new people to follow or contact

·              Use hashtags for chats, livetweeting

·              Power searching

·              Develop lists of followers

·              Use mentions of others to increase your visibility

Contact Ellen McLean:  admin@mopsych.org if you have any questions, but if you want to RSVP, please click on the link(s) above.

Opportunity for Better Care and Increased Revenue

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has announced 2 new programs that are of interest.

• The Medicare Shared Savings Program will provide incentives for participating health care providers who agree to work together and become accountable for coordinating care for patients.  Providers who band together through this model and who meet certain quality standards based upon, among other measures, patient outcomes and care coordination among the provider team, may share in savings they achieve for the Medicare program.  The higher the quality of care providers deliver, the more shared savings the providers may keep.
• The Advance Payment model will provide additional support to physician-owned and rural providers participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program who also would benefit from additional start-up resources to build the necessary infrastructure, such as new staff or information technology systems.  The advanced payments would be recovered from any future shared savings achieved by the Accountable Care Organization.

For more information click here and here.

Welcome New Member!

Please join me in welcoming MOPA's newest member Dr. Lisa Goldman.

Dr. Goldman specializes in child & adolescent, family & couples, highly conflictual divorces, issues surrounding school refusal, end of life, cancer and other health related medical illness.

Dr. Goldman graduated from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology where her emphasis was on women and their life span, children, bereavement, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trangender (LGBT) community, and clinical psychology. She trained in community mental health centers, a private psychiatric unit in a hospital setting, schools, and had a concentration in acute psychiatric treatment and chronic health conditions. Prior to receiving her doctorate in Clinical Psychology she received her Master in Education from the University of Wisconsin. Her concentration was on learning disabilities, special education law, and training families to advocate for their children with special education needs. Her two graduate degrees and her extensive clinical background allow her a unique understanding of the broad array of mental health issues impacting people of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, religions, and races.

Dr. Goldman has post graduate training in treatment of chronic health patients, divorce mediation, industrial/corporate mediation, counseling couples, families, women, and the LGBT community.

Dr. Goldman has been asked to speak at many organizations regarding mental health issues. 

Specialties

Dr. Goldman's two graduate degrees and her extensive clinical background allow her a unique understanding of the broad array of mental health issues impacting people of all ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, religions, and races. Areas of expertise end of life treatment, school issues for children from preschool through college, highly conflictual divorces.

BCBS of KC Announces Reduction in Fee Schedule

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City recently announced that effective November 1, 2011, they will be reducing the fee schedule for doctorate and masters level clinicians in several of their PPO networks.

These include:

• Preferred Care (PC)
• Preferred Care Blue (PCB)
• Blue Access
• Freedom Network
• Freedom Network Select

The change impacts in-network behavioral health providers in independent practice including psychologists. The rationale provided for the decrease was to be more consistent with other rates in the market. The decrease varies and is approximately 20-30% depending upon the CPT code.  In an attempt to better serve our members, we are trying to determine who in our membership will be impacted by this drastic reduction.  We are working with APA on this matter to determine how to best address this matter. The bigger concern as always is that when one insurance company lowers their rates, other companies will follow suit in the near future. If you are being impacted by this change please contact our Executive Director Ellen at esmclean@gmail.com.

Recent actions taken by the New Jersey Psychological Association

NJPA Press Release: New Jersey Psychologists Fight to End Unlawful Practices of Major Health Insurance Plans

Please click HERE to read a very important press release about New Jersey Psychological Association's legal actions against insurance companies.

Additional information can be found at: www.speakyourmindnj.org

Survey Request and chance to win $50 Gift Card

You are being asked to participate in a dissertation research study regarding various theoretical frameworks and therapeutic techniques utilized by Licensed Mental Health Professionals. Should you agree to participate, you will be asked to complete two measures and two demographic/background information sheets, which will take approximately 30 minutes to complete. Participation is anonymous and when finished, you will have the opportunity to enter a drawing for one of four $50 Amazon.com gift cards. Please click on the following link to participate:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/larauscher