Author Description

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.