When your team comes to the negotiating table with commercial payers this year, they’ll be doing so in the new normal: the coronavirus pandemic.

Whether contract negotiations come during or toward the end of this country’s most devasting healthcare crisis in a century, this will be a whole new ballgame. Having wreaked havoc on institutions, policies, and procedures, the lingering effect of the pandemic is expected to bring to the forefront unprecedented financial and public health challenges for both payers and providers, affecting the types of agreements both parties can strike. 

Reporting our lead story is Terry Fletcher, nationally recognized professional physician coder and auditor. Fletcher will discuss points of negotiation and trends that could impact payor-provider negotiations.

The live broadcast will also feature these other segments:

• Tuesday Focus: Susan Gatehouse reports on the need to focus on your compliance plan and isolate key areas related to COVID-19 to ensure fraud prevention and to help mitigate internal risks and external audit reporting.
  
  
• Mental Health Report: H. Steven Moffic, MD reports on what he perceives as a “double whammy” on mental health: the confluence of the coronavirus pandemic and the impact of climate change on mental health.
  
  
• The Coding Report: Laurie Johnson reports on the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) final rule released last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
  
  
• News Desk: Timothy Powell, compliance expert and ICD10monitor national correspondent, anchors the Talk Ten Tuesdays News Desk.
  
  
• TalkBack: Erica Remer, MD reports on another thought-provoking topic that has captured her attention.