This year’s Annual Issues Symposium was the best I’ve attended – and I’ve been to 20 or so.
The hotel and conference center were excellent – great service, everything was right on site, food was very good, all around best conference site experience in memory.
The opening day’s content was rich and mostly very well done. Kathy Antonello’s discussion of results continues to improve. I would have liked a bit deeper dive into cost drivers, but that’s a very minor quibble; you can’t cover everything in an hour. Graphic presentation was helpful, and Kathy is clearly comfortable on stage and enjoys presenting.
For me, after Kathy’s State of the Line the highlight was the discussion of AI and human decision making. Jim Guszcza of Deloitte was brilliant, laying out a compelling case for the joint use of both AI and humans in decision making.
A discussion of TRIA renewal was – I’m sure – of keen interest to many, but the speaker’s impact suffered a bit as he read his talk. David Priebe of Guy Carpenter is clearly expert in all things TRIA and knows his stuff.
Moments into David Deitz’ physician panel, the hotel lost power and all went dark. Staff responded quickly, using social media to keep all of us informed – they handled the unexpected with aplomb.
The physician panel is up there somewhere…
When things got started, I had the sense the blackout was a metaphor for payers’ views of treating providers – there’s little visibility into what docs have to deal with when serving work comp patients.
In fact, the physicians had pointed comments about the problems docs face trying to do the right thing, many of which are caused by well-intentioned but ultimately dumb “requirements”. Takeaway – if we want good care, we need to make sure the people delivering it like to work with us. We have a long way to go to make the occ docs who care for our patients true partners.
Barry Lipton quickly ran thru three research foci, I particularly liked Barry’s insights into ways work comp and group health are different.
Alas I won’t be attending the second day; the boy’s annual mountain bike trip conflicted. It’s off to Moab, Utah, for four days of back-to-boyhood.
What does this mean for you?
This is a must go. Sign up early so you don’t get locked out of 2020.
