BUSINESS GROUP PLANS SEMINAR ON MANAGED HEALTH CARE FOR AREA

Managed care will be the focus of a seminar on Tuesday sponsored by the Southeast Missouri Business Group on Health.

"Moving Ahead with Managed Care" will feature a number of topics including the role of business and industry in health care reform and hospitals of the 21st century.

Speakers include Sean Sullivan, president and CEO of the National Business Coalition on Health; Michael B. Wood, director of the National Center for Managed Health Care Administration at the University of Missouri-Kansas City; Bradley C. Engle, principal of William M. Mercer Inc.; and Dr. Lawrence M. Poston, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School.

Since HealthNet Blue and Humana set up shop in Southeast Missouri to bring managed care to the region, a number of questions have arisen about managed care and its impact on industry and consumers, said Mary Dunn, executive director of the Southeast Missouri Business Group on Health.

"I believe we've had a lot of change here," she said, adding that the advent of managed care has stirred up a little "competition that has lowered rates" for business and industries providing health care coverage.

"Prices have certainly come down, as they truly do when you're in a marketplace where people have options," she said.

Publications like the state's "Buyers' Guides" on different types of health care procedures have played a significant role as well by letting consumers shop for the best health care prices, Dunn said.

She expects an HMO option will be available in Cape Girardeau in 1996. "In the meantime, our whole goal is let's educate people about managed care," she said.

Managed care, properly used, can cut down significantly on health care costs for business and industry, Dunn said.

Nationally, she said, 75 percent of the population with health care benefits is in some type of managed care system Managed care hasn't penetrated the Southeast Missouri market yet, "and we're still in double digit" increases for health care costs.

The seminar will be held at the Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau. Cost is $50, and includes lunch. Registration starts at 7 a.m. Breakout discussions later in the day.

For more information, call 6551-4688.