Experts take health reform’s ‘Pulse’

Know everything you need to know about health-care reform?

I didn’t think so. Few of us who are not in the medical or insurance sectors — and probably few of those who are — have a full understanding of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or how it will affect us as individuals, business owners, health-care providers or insurers. After all, the legislation itself encompassed 2,500 pages, with some estimating that it’s so far been translated into 20,000 pages of regulations.

Now, that would help alleviate quite a few sleepless nights. (Who needs to count sheep when you can read about employer mandates and health-care exchanges?)

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Alternatively, if you want to learn about the act but don’t want to doze off, you could attend “Pulse: What’s Next with Health-Care Reform,” to be presented Sept. 18 at the Plaza Convention Center in Longmont. The half-day conference, from 7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., will include a variety of panels and keynote speakers who will tackle the major changes affecting individuals and business owners, as well as health-care providers, insurers, brokerages and others in the medical field.

Among the topics:

• A breakfast keynote presentation by Rulon Stacey, president of University of Colorado Health. Stacey will describe the reasons Poudre Valley Health System, based in Fort Collins, partnered with University of Colorado Hospital to form University of Colorado Health. He’ll also discuss how the combination makes it easier for the system to pay for health care, and how it will affect health-care costs overall.

• A panel discussion featuring hospital executives from throughout the Boulder Valley will discuss “Market Response to Health-Care Reform,” demonstrating how local providers are responding to the Affordable Care Act through mergers, acquisitions, expansions and new construction. The panel will include Stacey; David Gehant, chief executive of Boulder Community Hospital in Boulder; Dave Hamm, CEO of Exempla Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette; and Dennis Barts, CEO of Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville.

• Health-care experts will also present a panel discussion on “Health-Care Reform and Your Business,” highlighting important considerations for business owners, including whether to offer or retain coverage; how the Affordable Care Act affects your business; what role the new health-insurance exchanges play in how health insurance is delivered; and how health-care reform might force business owners to change existing benefits, such as waiting periods for new employees.

• We’ll also take a bigger-picture look at the Affordable Care Act, with insurers and other experts describing where we stand, what upcoming milestones we can expect and what those changes mean for providers, insurers and brokers.

• Finally, Mike Slubowski, president and CEO of SCL Health System, will deliver a luncheon keynote presentation.

Sponsors include Kaiser Permanente and H+L Architecture. For sponsorship information, contact Kevin Loewen at 303-630-1945. Tickets for Pulse can be purchased by visiting www.bcbr.com.    

Christopher Wood can be reached at 303-440-4950 or at cwood@bcbr.com.