NCCI’s conference is perhaps the best-produced workers comp conference I’ve attended. Great support for speakers (thanks Mona Carter, Peter Burton, Lisa Lancelotti, Linda Simmonds et al), well run, tightly organized, and substantive as well.
Several single-state payers I spoke with at the conference said they attend NCCI, and other national conferences and affiliate with national trade groups (AIA) for a very good reason – they know it is important to keep abreast of national trends, share ideas with other payers, and avoid the perils of navel-gazing. Less insightful regional payers don’t see the value, and will regret their myopia.
The keynote – David Gergen – was excellent. Great to hear his perspective; Gergen is even-handed, deeply knowledgeable, and a good speaker. Posted on that elsewhere…
Aron Ralston’s talk (he of the 127 hours; he’s the guy trapped by a boulder in a canyon in Utah who had to chop his own arm off to escape) was compelling – to say the least. He talked little of the pain, the horror of near death by dehydration (reportedly one of the more awful ways to die), the personal misery – he didn’t ignore it but did not make that a main theme of the speech. One cannot imagine the terror, much less the physical misery he suffered while trapped for five days. He used the trauma to focus his attention – and the audience’s – on identifying the important things in life; Not your typical NCCI talk (but I’d rather listen to Ralston than Krauthammer any day). A risky choice for NCCI, and one that – by all accounts – was an excellent one.
I spoke on Thieves, Profiteers, and Enablers, a quick summary of physician dispensing, overprescribing of opioids, and the growth of compounded medications, physician-dispensed durable medical equipment and physician-office-based drug testing. Notice a common thread here? These are physician-centric…
Alas, I felt like I was preaching to the converted…
Attendance at the end-of-the-conference research discussion was high, proving that there is a large audience for the more analytical presentations. There was a lot of discussion, attendee input, and dialogue, with many relevant points, observations, and recommendations for refinement or methodological modifications.
A couple more posts to come on the annual confab, stay tuned!
