An announcement from Dr. Nicholas Cummings on behalf of the National Alliance of Professional Psychology Providers
When a reporter asked Willie Sutton, the legendary bank robber, why he robbed banks, he replied, ÒBecause that's where the money is.Ó Healthcare is booming in every aspect except psychotherapy. Perhaps it is time to ask, while our practices are languishing and the U.S. Department of Labor lists psychology as the lowest paid of all the doctoral health professions, why we are left out of one of the fastest growing sectors of our economy? Colleagues, it is time we took back our practice from the Willie Suttons who have usurped it. NAPPP has an exciting, proven plan that will reverse this and elevate practice and professional psychology. We have rendered ourselves an economically illiterate profession, missing opportunity after opportunity while all other healthcare professions are innovating delivery systems and booming. We are stuck in the 50-minute hour, the fee for which has been successively reduced by managed care to often less than you pay your plumber. It is time we correct that, and regain what was lost when the APA declined and took a negative stance when a similar plan was offered to give them the model of a national practitioner-owned and managed mental health delivery model.
Opportunity Does Knock Twice!!!
NAPPP is launching a nationalpractitioner-driven, managed, and owned, behavioral health delivery system. Our network will
be marketed to self-insured organizations, labor unions, and others, a product that will restore to the national scene proven quality
behavioral care that not only is efficient and effective, but also consumer-driven and affordable. The NAPPP network will provide
to employers and organizationally owned systems the expert management, training of providers, treatment philosophy, delivery,
collections/claims and all other aspects of a successful national delivery system.
Who Can participate?
The national provider panel will be open to all NAPPP members who successfully complete the application process and training
requirements. To facilitate this, theCummings Foundation for Behavioral Healthhas contributed to NAPPP a complete training
course on DVDs. The instructors include my psychologist daughter, Dr. Janet Cummings, who has taught the model extensively,
and myself.
Once accepted as a provider, each provider will be apartner-owner of the company, a model patterned after the Kaiser Permanente Health System on the West Coast, long recognized as the gold standard in both consumer and practitioner satisfaction and loyalty. Our goal is to provide the best in quality care, commensurate with sound delivery methods, and within a practitioner friendly atmosphere. These are the antithesis of the current managed behavioral care companies, but all were successfully accomplished in the 10-year existence of American Biodyne.
Additionally, those who wish to rise in the ranks of this innovative health plan can participate in additional training in behavioral health care management. Mastering management of one's practice or small group practice is not enough, as the requirements of a national company are to that as the horse and buggy is to a spaceship. A series of courses, all taught by recognized experts, again all on sets of DVDs, are also being provided to the NAPPP . Management training will provide practitioners with upward mobility in theirpractitioner-owned company. More on this can be found on the NAPPP website.
Take Back Our Practice Now!
NAPPP is making it possible for us to have a second chance at owning our own delivery system, and erasing the blunder of the APA
not only in its original short-sightedness, but in its continuing impotence to rectify its mistake. Log ontohttp://nappp.org and begin
planning now for your participation in this exciting venture.