LBJ School News Brief

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Lowering costs of uncompensated hospital care is focus of LBJ School conference

National and local health care experts will convene at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin on March 24 to examine community-based initiatives for lowering the cost of providing hospital care to uninsured patients.

The conference, which is free and open to the public, is titled "Care That Pays for Itself? Community Initiatives to Reduce Uncompensated Health Care." Registration for the event is full; however, the morning proceedings will be webcast live on the LBJ School Web site http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/webcasts. (Details about the conference schedule are below.)

Interactive discussions led by local and national experts will cover such topics as options for increasing mental health services, respite care for the homeless, diabetes case management, post-hospitalization care and 21-day post-discharge clinics for the uninsured.

The conference features an address by Eduardo Sanchez, M.D., commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services, as well as two panels. The first panel will discuss successful initiatives that have reduced costs in other cities and health care systems. In the second panel, local hospital leaders will present initiatives developed by hospitals, hospital districts and the University of Texas System to help care for the large number of uninsured in Texas.

Dr. Robert Hurley of Virginia Commonwealth University will deliver a luncheon keynote address titled "Indigent Care Ecosystems: A Cross Community Perspective." A leading researcher on managed care and indigent care, Hurley has been studying communities across the United States in collaboration with the Center for Studying Health System Change.

A series of workshops will take place between 1:45 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

The event is the culmination of a policy research project funded by the St. David’s Community Health Foundation and conducted by Professor David Warner and a team of 15 graduate students of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. The project, which began last August, analyzes the characteristics of patients who have generated the most uncompensated care over the past year at the hospitals in the St. David's system and the Indigent Care Collaboration, which includes Seton, Brackenridge and others. Researchers also studied effective models of public health and community-based interventions from across the country. At the conference, the team will present its findings and offer its recommendations for Austin-based initiatives that could reduce the costs of uncompensated care.

A live webcast of the two panels and the address by Sanchez will appear on the LBJ School Web site (http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/webcasts/) from 8:15 a.m. to noon. A streaming video of the proceedings will be available in the LBJ School Screening Room (http://www.utexas.edu/lbj/video/) by March 31.

For a detailed agenda of the conference, click here. For additional information, contact Becky Pastner at becky.pastner@mail.utexas.edu or 512-658-7539.

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Comments to: lbjweb@uts.cc.utexas.edu

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