New York / PRWeb / August 21, 2014 – Epstein Becker Green and EBG Advisors are pleased to announce that Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute’s (HCI3) Francois de Brantes, MS, MBA, Executive Director, Douglas Emery, MS, Program implementation Leader, West Region for HCI3, and Gretchen K. Young, Senior Vice President, Health Policy, The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) are scheduled to speak at the August session of The Thought Leaders in Population Health Webinar Speaker Series.

“With the new employer mandate and related provisions under the Affordable Care Act, understanding how businesses, unions and other plan sponsors are impacted by health care reforms is critical,” notes Mark Lutes, Chair of Epstein Becker Green’s Board of Directors. “Our webinar panelists will provide important insights on how the population heath management movement is creating new opportunities for innovation and enhanced outcomes.”

Among other topics, de Brantes and the other panelists will discuss emerging value-based purchasing opportunities.  He notes, “Evidence is growing that substantial savings can be achieved by both removing the financial incentive to provide marginally effective services and managing care through bundled reimbursement policies.”

Gretchen K. Young, Senior Vice President, Health Policy, The ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC), has been tracking the impact of the ACA for years.  “While a primary goal of the ACA is to promote health coverage in the Exchanges and by private employers, in some cases these rules have proven to be detrimental and have actually ended up hurting employer-based coverage.” Ms. Young adds, “This is especially true when we see how regulations promulgated from the ACA can create barriers to support wellness and other population health programs.”

The session, Population Health Strategies for Employer-Based Coverage, will assess how employers and other health plan sponsors are developing new programs to promote enhanced clinical and financial outcomes for the groups and populations they manage. In particular, speakers will highlight how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is influencing population health management strategies for employer-based coverage.

The webinar, scheduled for August 26, 2014 at 12:00 p.m. ET, will focus on:

• How the ACA’s rules, including the Cadillac tax on health benefits, are restricting the ability of employers to contain health care costs.
• How employers are creating and implementing new incentive programs to align prudent purchasing with proper care management techniques.
• Emerging legal and reporting requirements based upon ACA and state requirements.

The Thought Leaders in Population Health Speaker Series offers participants informative and insightful guidance on how population health strategies are transforming the health care paradigm as the industry moves towards measurement and management of integrated delivery systems, such as accountable care organizations (ACOs). All previous webinar programs can be viewed online. To register for this session, please click here.

The Speakers

Francois de Brantes, MS, MBA, Executive Director, Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute

As Executive Director of HCI3, Mr. de Brantes is responsible for setting and implementing the strategy of the organization. This includes supervising the operations of the Bridges To Excellence and PROMETHEUS Payment pilots, leading the development of new programs, and designing incentive efforts for employers, health plans and provider organizations.

Previously, Mr. de Brantes was the Program Leader for various health care initiatives at GE Corporate Health Care Programs, and was responsible for developing the conceptual framework and the implementation of GE’s Active Consumer strategy.

Mr. de Brantes attended the University of Paris IX – Dauphine where he earned a MS in Economics and Finance. After completing his military service as a platoon leader in a Light Cavalry Regiment, he attended the Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College, where he graduated with an MBA.

Douglas Emery, MS, Program Implementation Leader, Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute

Mr. Emery serves as the Operations Manager for the Western Region for HCI3. He has been working in health care reform policy for over 15 years. Beginning in 1991 at the Institute of Political Economy, he and other colleagues began to work out a new microeconomic model for health care economics and episode of care purchasing.

Since then, Mr. Emery has worked in the public sector (Public Employees Health Program of Utah) and the private sector as an executive and consultant (Oxford Health Plans, HealthSouth, HealthMarket, Medstat, Definity Health, and others). Mr. Emery has published many articles and two books on moving toward a more consumer-directed model and episode purchasing.

Gretchen K. Young, Senior Vice President, Health Policy, the ERISA Industry Committee

Ms. Young is the Senior Vice President, Health Policy, for the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC). She works in Washington, D.C., where her primary responsibilities include working as a registered Congressional lobbyist on federal health issues, and monitoring the work of Congress and the executive agencies with respect to health benefits.

Her primary focus over the past five years has been the Affordable Care Act and the accompanying regulations. She also has devoted considerable time and attention to employer wellness programs and the threats to them posted by the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Prior to her work at ERIC, Ms. Young covered both retirement and health issues for several large consulting forms. She has worked for over 25 years in the employee benefits field, including stints at three federal agencies that regulate ERISA plans: IRS, PBGC, and DOL.

Adam Solander, Associate, Epstein Becker Green

Session moderator Mr. Solander is an associate of Epstein Becker Green’s Health Care and Life Sciences practice in the firm’s Washington, DC office. Mr. Solander advises health care clients on issues concerning ERISA preemption, obligations of plan fiduciaries and breach of fiduciary duties, prohibited transactions, and denial of benefits. He counsels employers and trade associations on ACA compliance and wellness issues, and also has experience advocating on behalf of health care trade associations and disease-specific patient advocacy groups to the Congressional and Executive branches.

Mr. Solander received a 2014 Burton Award for Legal Writing for coauthoring the article “For Employers with High Turnover and Large Numbers of Seasonal Workers, the ACA Creates Unique Compliance Issues,” which was published in Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Labor Report on July 10, 2013. The award, which is given in association with the Library of Congress, was presented to only 30 authors from entries submitted by the nation’s 1,000 largest law firms. The winners were selected by a distinguished panel of judges and law school professors from Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, and Stanford Law School.

To learn more, log on to www.ebgadvisors.com or click here to register for any of these webinars. A Q&A period will follow the webinar, so don’t miss this unique opportunity for leading population health experts to answer your questions. To listen to the previous webinars from our Thought Leaders in Population Health Speaker Series, please click here.

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About EBG Advisors

EBG Advisors, Inc., is a Washington, D.C.-based consultancy that takes a multidisciplinary approach to helping health care and life sciences companies navigate the many obstacles that they face. EBG Advisors’ reimbursement experts, policy analysts, strategists, and other professionals specialize in providing coordinated guidance and solutions across various segments of the health care industry. For more information, visit www.ebgadvisors.com.

About Epstein Becker Green

Epstein Becker Green, P.C., founded in 1973, is a national law firm with approximately 250 lawyers practicing in 10 offices in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Newark, San Francisco, Stamford, and Washington, D.C. The firm is uncompromising in its pursuit of legal excellence and client service in these areas of practice: Health Care and Life Sciences, Labor and Employment, Litigation, Corporate Services, and Employee Benefits. Epstein Becker Green was founded to serve the health care industry and has been at the forefront of health care legal developments since 1973. The firm is also proud to be a trusted advisor to clients in the financial services, retail, and hospitality industries, among others, representing entities from startups to Fortune 100 companies. Our commitment to these practices and industries reflects the founders’ belief in focused proficiency paired with seasoned experience. For more information, visit www.ebglaw.com.