Join the Children's Health Alliance
To join, please review this page and then Contact Us
Consider becoming a member of the Children’s Health Alliance. Membership in the Alliance has many benefits for you and for your clinic. The Children’s Health Alliance is the only single-specialty physician association in Oregon. Unlike other physician associations, the Alliance offers services and contracts that are specific to pediatric practice.
For example, we currently have contracts with Aetna, Providence Health Plan EPO, HealthNet, PacificSource, Aetna, CareOregon and KidsConnect. In 2010, our goal is to add one to two more health plan contracts. Our contracts with Care Oregon, HealthNet and Providence Health Plans include incentives to participate in Alliance quality improvement activities.
We negotiate vender contracts for medical supplies, vaccines, office supplies and equipment, as well as other services. For example:
- Medical supplies, devices, and equipment are negotiated with Cardinal Health.
- Our group purchasing organization is AmeriNet.
- The direct venders for flu vaccine are sanofi pasteur and FluMist.
- Immunization venders are Merck and sanofi pasteur.
- Other services for which we have negotiated discounts.
The Alliance offers a unique opportunity to add value collectively. The Alliance works toward creating a collaborative environment of improvement among member practices to improve care for all children. This enables us to negotiate contracts that offer fair reimbursement and provisions specific to pediatrics.
The Children’s Health Alliance, through the Children’s Health Foundation participates in quality improvement initiatives. These initiatives provide actionable and meaningful measures to make real improvement in the quality of care delivered to children. These provide opportunities to collaborate and share learnings, spread best practices and spread knowledge throughout the community.
Financial Benefits
Every year, the Alliance calculates the financial benefits of membership to ensure that there is a return on investment for our members. In 2009, the average cost savings or revenue per full-time equivalent pediatrician that we were able to quantify was over $17,000 for a solo and $25,000 for a group practice. This amount varied by practice. The amount will increase as we add health plan contracts and vendor discounts.
If you want to know more about becoming a member, please see our qualifications
for membership and fees.
Qualifications for Membership
To become a member, you must:
- Have a professional license.
- Have a current federal drug enforcement administration registration number.
- Be eligible or certified by the American Board of Medical specialties
as a specialist in pediatrics.
- Be a medical staff member with clinical privileges in an active or associate
category, at JACHO accredited hospital.
- Have medical malpractice coverage of at least $1 M per occurrence and
$3 M aggregate.
- Practice primary care pediatrics.
- Be able to sign a contract.
- Abide by all aspects of the bylaws and rules and rules of the Alliance.
- Cooperate with the Alliance and its members in the implementation of
the Alliance’s policies and objectives.
- Pay dues and any assessments as required by the Board of Directors.
- Adhere to the medical ethics of the county and state medical society
where you are practicing.
- Be able to deliver to the Alliance adequate information for proper evaluation
regarding competence, training, character and other qualifications as required.
- Be able to participate in the quality initiatives of the Alliance.
Fees
The Alliance is completely funded by its membership. Any rebates, administrative dues, and discounts are passed on to our members. This eliminates conflicts of interest, provides transparency within and ensures we put our members first.
The Alliance has a one-time set up fee for new members and annual membership dues per full time equivalent (FTE) pediatrician. The annual dues are billed twice a year and are payable in three installments.
If you are interested in joining the membership of the Alliance, please
contact us.