Header Photo    
Promoting Access to Brain Injury Health Care  
   
 



about us

 

corporate members:

Centre for Neuro Skills

Core Healthcare

Rehab Without Walls/Gentiva

Hope Network Rehabilitation Services

Lakeview

NeuroRestorative Specialty Centers

Pate Rehabilitation

Rainbow Rehabilitation Centers, Inc.

Special Tree Rehabilitation System

Spectrum Health Continuing Care

Transitional Learning Center

council chair:

Christopher Slover

Lakeview

council committees:

Mark J. Ashley, Sc.D., CCC-SLP, CCM Centre for Neuro Skills

Chair of Public Affairs Committee

Bill Buccalo, CPA

Rainbow Rehabilitation Centers

Chair of Health Outcomes and Business Metrics Committee

Roger P. Carrillo, M.Ed.

NeuroRestorative Specialty Centers Chair of Membership Committee

Brent Masel, MD

Transitional Learning Center

Chair of Treatment and Disease Management Standards Committee

 

 

 

 
 

 

Historical Perspective 

  

 

      Council’s Structure and Strategy

  • The Council operates as a member-funded special interest group within BIAA; its chairperson will have a designated seat on the national Board of Directors. Standing committees and work groups will be formed as necessary to achieve the Council’s purposes. Membership dues will be set by Council leaders based on member-approved goals and objectives. BIAA’s President/CEO will manage the Council’s daily affairs, including its staff and budget.
  • The lack of an evidence-based standard of care in concert with a payer-driven cost-containment health care system and detrimental public policies have resulted in suboptimal treatment for patients, greater economic burden to society and lost business opportunity for service providers. The Council will work to reverse these trends by launching an aggressive government relations campaign that will be supported by data-driven clinical outcomes and business management metrics.
  • The Council will bring together a diverse group of brain injury health care organizations, professionals in practice treating patients following brain injuries, and vendors and businesses selling services and products to brain injury health care providers. Only recently has the concept of “co-opetition" (4) which is the blending of cooperation and competition to build a stronger business climate, been introduced. The failure to embrace “co-opetition” before now has created three strategic challenges in the brain injury health care industry:
    • the lack of data-driven standards of care,
    • a shift from patient to payer-driven treatment; and
    • the emergence of detrimental public policies.

         Council’s Initial Goals

  • Launch Access to Care as a nationwide lobbying and public relations initiative that transforms public and private third-party payer policies to appropriately compensate brain injury service providers,
  • Guide the development and adoption of care standards that preserve the health and maximize the function of individuals with brain injury and support arguments for equitable compensation, and
  • Identify clinical outcomes and business datasets and oversee the development of an online database that delivers real-time benchmarking data for varying levels of brain injury treatment and rehabilitation.

 

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head injury that impacts one or more parts of the brain, thereby temporarily or permanently disrupting normal function. New estimates from the CDC indicate 1.6 million people sustain a TBI in the US each year, and more than 125,000 individuals annually incur lifelong disability from TBI (1).

 

These figures do not include the incidence of stroke which is estimated at 780,000 Americans per year (2), nor do the figures include meningitis, encephalitis, brain cancer or other acquired brain injuries and disorders. During the last 30 years, advances in emergency medicine, diagnostic procedures, and treatment methods dramatically improved the brain injury survival rate and fostered the development of a complex continuum of post acute rehabilitation and long-term care programs. Today, there are more than 900 CARF-accredited post acute brain injury programs in the US (3), and nearly 3,000 professionals are certified by the Academy of Certified Brain Injury Specialists (ACBIS), a subsidiary program of BIAA. In the absence of a strategic and coordinated voice for brain injury health care providers, the industry has unwittingly acquiesced to payer demands thereby relinquishing control of their clinical and financial destinies. At the suggestion of its corporate sponsors, the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA) proposed the formation of a Brain Injury Business & Professional Council to set the standard for brain injury rehabilitative care and to foster a sustainable, profitable business climate for brain injury health care providers. 

References

(1) CDC, Traumatic Brain Injury Facts (in press).

(2) American Heart Association, Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics-2008 Update. Dallas, TX: AHA, 2008.

(3) Personal communication with Christine M. MacDonell, Managing Director, CARF on November 3, 2007.

(4) Brandenburge, A.M., Nalebuff, B.J., Co-opetition. New York: Doubleday. 1996.