WOMHA: An Independent Practice Association
Newsletter for August 2016

Dear WOMHA members,

As we near our early membership renewal during the month of September, I wanted to inform you of an incentive that WOMHA is offering for members. We are offering this incentive to try and grow our membership within the Willamette Valley area as well as across the state in order to provide the best providers to insurance companies. Any current WOMHA member who recruits a provider(s) to enroll in WOMHA will receive a 25% discount ($100) on membership renewal dues which are $400 this year. There is an additional $100 fee for AMHA USA that we cannot discount. Please have the new recruit mention your name when enrolling and you will receive the discount. 

The information presented in this months newsletter may assist you in answering any potential questions that might come up for a prospective member. 

Nick Dietlein, Psy.D.

WOMHA President


WHY STAY WITH WOMHA? 
On Tuesday November 15 at 6:30 PM we will be holding our annual all-member WOMHA meeting. Over the next three months, we will be highlighting our accomplishments and seeking your membership renewal.
 
This month we identify how your membership dollars fund professional lobbying for better reimbursement. Our lobbyist group, the Public Affairs Counsel, and our all-volunteer Legislative Committee are working together to achieve this. We assure you, no other professional organization in the State will fight harder for you to achieve better reimbursement.
 
Here is what we’ve accomplished this past year:

• Collaborated in the design of the Oregon Insurance Division’s (OID) data call to gather 2007-2015 mental health reimbursement data in order to examine trends.
• Proposed analytic methodology to help OID determine whether insurance companies’ reimbursement practices have complied with the intentions of the federal and state mental health parity laws.
• Provided input to OID about how to determine the adequacy of an insurance company’s mental health provider panel in compliance with the new HB 2468 law. Tough rules on panel adequacy should yield better reimbursement.
• Coordinated efforts with lobbyists for the psychologists, social workers, and LPC/LMFT counselors in order to craft a unified approach to seeking better mental health reimbursement.
• Met with eight influential Republican and Democratic members of the House and Senate health care committees during May Legislative Days, informing them of our work with OID and laying the groundwork for fair mental health reimbursement legislation.
• Presented our IPA Connecting Care model to the Oregon Health Authority and discussed how to reduce bureaucratic roadblocks to attain high paying OHP contracts.

We need your membership renewal to help us fight for tough insurance regulation and fair mental health reimbursement legislation. The 2017 State legislative session represents a make or break opportunity to achieve this. Keep in mind the reimbursement success achieved by the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners through legislative advocacy. We have the right cause; we need the professional megaphone. Please renew your membership in November to help us drive this message home and achieve success.
 

WOMHA FAQs

1. What is WOMHA?
WOMHA is a nonprofit corporation that is
structured as an Independent Practice Association (IPA) to preserve private practice autonomy and values in the midst of major shifts in healthcare introduced by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. WOMHA is a united front of mental health professionals (licensed professional counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, psychologists, social workers, and psychiatric nurse health practitioners) to ensure our voice is heard as we provide high quality private mental health services in the ever-changing landscape of healthcare. 
 
2. What are the benefits of joining WOMHA?

• Aligning with a group of professionals who will fight hard to achieve better reimbursement
• WOMHA has already secured two contracts with major insurance companies (Pacific Source and MODA) that have yielded better reimbursement rates
• We are currently seeking to negotiate other contracts with Regence as well as a WOMHA local contract with Kaiser-Permanente (which already pays therapists some of the best rates available).
• We fight to protect our private practice autonomy as we are prepared to participate in risk management contracts when Oregon shifts from fee-for service reimbursement to pay-for-performance contracts.We also monitor legislative bills that would potentially threaten the future of autonomous mental health private practice.
• WOMHA is working to increase your referral base by enhancing search engine optimization through the AMHA website, coordinating with local doctors and administrative leaders of doctors’ offices to increase care coordination.
• WOMHA members seek to coordinate mental health care with primary care physicians and hospitals in order to provide integrated services.  We extend special efforts to reduce patient hospitalization and to follow up quickly with patients released from hospitals to avoid re-hospitalization.

3.  Do I have to use electronic record-keeping?
WOMHA members participating in contracts utilize an empirically based Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) approach to delivering services. This approach involves screening our patients routinely, measuring the severity of their symptoms and level of therapeutic alliance. Our members share results of these screenings with patients and discuss any weak treatment alliance that would forecast premature dropout or off-track performance. Research suggests that therapists who screen their patients regularly and share this data with them have better performance outcomes.  These screening measures identify initial levels of global distress and serve as follow-up progress measures as a result of treatment.   Data serves to guide WOMHA members about their individual performance relative to group norms.  WOMHA members learn to improve services over the course of time. The IPA can then also share this information with payers to demonstrate value added performance empirically.
 
4. How are my dues allocated/what do they pay for?

• Lobbying efforts
• Contracting with insurance companies
• Continuing Education
• Building referral sources and increasing efficacy of online searches

5. How do I refer someone to another therapist in WOMHA?
Through our website (www. WOMHA.org) which lists each member’s education and background, contact information, professional focus and specializations, professional affiliations, populations , and insurance plans accepted.  
 
6. What are the insurance companies with whom WOMHA is seeking to contract?
WOMHA currently has contracts with Pacific Source and MODA.  We are currently exploring other companies (Regence and Kaiser-Permanente).
 
7. How does WOMHA represent my profession and advocate my voice as a mental health professional?
WOMHA monitors the activities of the Oregon legislature related to mental health and have put forward legislation. We are represented by the Public Affairs Counsel lobbyist group and advocate for issues related to professional independent practice, mental health parity reimbursement. Our members have met with the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Insurance Division. We publish a monthly newsletter to keep members attuned to the organizational mission. We also provide continuing education workshops to facilitate
professional development.