September 1, 2004
Subject: Letter of Reference for Kirck Associates
To Whom It May Concern,
As the Chief Financial Officer of New England Life Care, Inc. ("NELC"), please accept this letter as my endorsement of, and reference for, Kirck Associates.
In the Spring of 2002, Kirck Associates was engaged by NELC for the purpose of assisting NELC in the immediate analysis of NELC’s patient registration process leading to the development and implementation of a critical gross margin analysis of every new patient referral prior to NELC accepting full risk for the cost of patient care.
The initial scope of work assigned to Kirck Associates included, but was not limited to, the following:
- Analysis of the new patient
registration process from NELC’s two operating branches in Maine and New
Hampshire.
- Analysis of underlying
commercial insurance payer contracts for NELC services.
- Generation of a gross margin
report for each new patient referral to include real-time alerts to NELC
of variances from NELC prescribed minimum margin requirements per
therapy.
- Preparation of various analyses and reporting capability for NELC to track patient referrals by therapy, payer contract, anticipated margin and actual margin achieved.
Kirck Associates took the initiative to coordinate their work with that of the NELC operations personnel, new patient intake personnel, pharmacy, receivable collectors, and accounting department personnel; going beyond the initial scope of NELC’s work request in full support of the overall Company goals. Based upon Kirck Associates’ professional skills and process improvement recommendations, the following major new initiatives were implemented at NELC that continued into 2003 and beyond:
- Kirck Associates developed a
detailed NELC decision control tracking system to manage the complex
maze of paper documents NELC had previously relied upon for NELC’s
acceptance and approval of a new patient onto NELC service. Kirck
Associates’ decision control system was extremely useful in requiring
compliance from NELC employees to include sales, nursing, and pharmacy
personnel.
- Through steadfast research and
undeniable documentation, Kirck Associates made a significant
contribution in identifying therapies where NELC was loosing money with
each new patient. These findings were instrumental in NELC’s
determination to change the methodology of delivering cost intensive
services.
- Kirck Associates made a
significant contribution in the development of the NELC payer gross
margin report as a means of establishing an activity basis accounting
for the referrals, revenue, direct costs and indirect costs associated
with NELC's major payer contract agreements. The payer gross margin
report provided the fact-based analysis necessary to document the
necessity of establishing a walk-away approach to payer demands for
NELC's continued acceptance of bad contract terms and conditions.
- Kirck Associates developed and
installed the NELC Patient Registration (Gross Margin) Model in order
for NELC to intercept patient referrals immediately upon intake to
measure anticipated gross margin from insurance company contracts.
Through the use of the Patient Registration Model NELC was able to
achieve a near 100% individual consideration success in re-negotiating
fees and dramatically improving NELC gross margins with the third-party
insurance contracts.
- NELC achieved approximately a
10-to-1 return on investment (ROI) on the overall Kirck Associates
project as a result of the near 100% success rate in individual
consideration awards for the balance of 2002.
- The successes in consistently winning individual consideration awards created the foundation for NELC success in renegotiating equitable insurance contracts for 2003 and beyond.
The results of Kirck Associates’ effort were the complete re-tooling of NELC’s new patient registration protocols, claim denial management processes, and the creation of an in-house audit support mechanism with rapid response to contractual compliance and financial accounting matters as they arose.
The impact of Kirck Associates’ work was to allow the Company to respond to growth, and the needs of the Company in a calm and businesslike manner.
As the CFO of NELC, I highly recommend Kirck Associates’ professionalism and ability to work with all levels of Management and NELC personnel.
Should there be any questions with respect to Kirck Associates’ work and performance while engaged by NELC, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Thomas R. Sahrmann,
NELC, Chief Financial Officer
800-290-6558 Ext 3102
Tsahrmann@nelifecare.org