New to health care coalitions

[Guest Laura Fenves]

We are new to the idea of health care coalitions and want to see if they are a possibilty to access health care.

We are a 70 person firm based in Maryland with employees in several locations across the US.

Any information or advice is greatly appreciated.

[Greg Judd]

Kind of surprising that coalitions would be new to a firm in Oleen's business, but it's a big world....

Coalitions exist to serve a variety of healthcare provision/healthcare financing/healthcare information purposes, so it's tough to generalize, but one function they frequently perform is to provide purchasing leverage for smaller firms in regional markets.

A reasonable way to begin your research is to start with the National Business Coalition on Health.

As a would-be service provider (I'm just guessing), you'll be in fast company...but it doesn't look like firms in your field are involved yet.

[This message has been edited by Greg Judd (edited 02-19-2000).]

[Guest Jerry99]

Laura:

A couple of additional contacts closer to your location: 1) Paula Breslin, Executive Director, Massachusetts Healthcare Purchasing Group (info@mhpg.org) or 2)

Barbara Wallace, Executive Director, Hampton

Roads Health Coalition (VA) at Hrhealthc@aol.com.

Jerry Custer

Heartland Healthcare Coalition

[Guest Little Archer]

The concept for health care coalitions is simple: Leverage the combined size and resources of a group of organizations to influence the cost, quality and access to health care services in a community, region, state or the nation as a whole.

[david rigby]

Some people might replace "leverage" and/or "influence" with "average".