Surviving the Demise of Solo Practice; Mental Health Practitioners Prospering in the Era of Managed Care »

Cummings, Nicholas A., PhD, ScD; Pallak, Michael S., PhD; Cummings, Janet L., PsyD

The contributors represent the specialty of behavioral health and most are from private practices in the U.S. Institutions prominently represented include Merit Behavioral Care and the Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Foundation.

Surviving the Demise of Solo Practice: Mental Health Practitioners Prospering in the Era of Managed Care is designed to serve as a guide to success for all those practitioners who avail themselves of an unprecedented window of opportunity. Not since the industrialization of healthcare in the early 1980s have practitioners been handed a means by which they can recapture control of healthcare delivery and thereby regain their autonomy, respect, and dignity. But this window of opportunity will be short-lived. For those who are willing to seize the moment, this volume is more than a survival manual; it is a road map to prosperity. Written for new and established practitioners, as well as for teachers, supervisors, and students, everything required to successfully transition to the new era is addressed. Each topic is presented by authors who began their careers as traditional mental health practitioners and then achieved spectacular success in the new health environment. They share with the readers their perspective of where behavioral health care is going, the paradigm shifts and the education and training necessary to become a part of the new era, how to raise capital for a new venture or group practice, the little known secrets of successfully partnering with managed care, as well as how to contract directly with purchasing alliances, thus bypassing and even replacing the managed care companies. At the end of the book there are three Appendices that have been prepared by Dr. Dennis Morrison and have never before been compiled. The valuable information in these Appendices can be found nowhere else. Appendix A lists information system vendors; Appendix B contains the most frequently used clinical information systems and where to obtain them; and Appendix C has Internet addresses in which practitioners would be most interested. The information contained in the Appendices is finally concluded with a list of suggested readings in health informatics.

Steven Gryll

The authors provide an encompassing analysis of the changes in the mental healthcare delivery system in the past decade and how those changes have impacted clinical practice, training of clinicians, and education. Each chapter is authored by individuals at the forefront of this revolution and who themselves have successfully negotiated new careers in these new service delivery organizations. This book serves as a guide to industrialization of healthcare and how to survive and prosper in response to it. The book provides a critical perception on past changes and predicts the directions the field is moving. This book is written for all mental health practitioners: psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers. The publication of this book could not be more timely. It is very well organized and quite thorough. A very useful addition is the listing of information systems vendors and relevant internet addresses in the appendixes. This book presents an extremely comprehensive assessment of the changes in the mental health delivery system during the past decade. Chapters are written by individuals who have been intimately involved in these changes and have been at the forefront of the managed care revolution. They offer practical suggestions concerning how a practitioner can participate and prosper. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the history and evolution of this behavioral health paradigm shift or who wants to prosper in these times.