2007 POST-SYMPOSIUM PUBLICATION

The 2007 Symposium on Advanced Issues in Dispute Resolution brought together a carefully selected group of nationally recognized representatives of patients, health care providers, payors and regulators, and experienced conflict resolution professionals. In a highly structured two-day conversation, we explored how health care professionals and conflict resolvers can work together to identify essential guiding principles for addressing conflicts across the health care field.

The Journal includes fourteen post-symposium reflective essays organized into five general topics, which collectively cover many of the common themes that dominated the symposium conversations:

•   What Makes Health Care Conflicts Different?  
• Overcoming Barriers to Change 
• Doctors and Lawyers: Pathways to Collaboration 
• Innovative Approaches to Managing Health Care Conflict  
• Coverage Disputes: A Search for Accountability and Sensibility 

•  An Intentional Conversations about Conflict Resolution in Health Care, James R. Coben

•  Are Health Care Conflicts All That Different? A Contrarian View, Diane E. Hoffmann
•  The Inevitability and Perils of "Invisible" Health Care Conflict, David Matz

•  Guess Who is Not Coming to Dinner: Where are the Physicians at the Healthcare Mediation Table?, Jay L. Hoecker
•  Preparing Physicians to Manage Conflict, or, How the Physician Leadership College Teaches Physicians to Use Interest-based Processes, John Conbere & Alla Heorhiadi
•  How Can I Give Her IV Antibiotics at Home When I Have Three Other Children to Care For? Using Dispute System Design to Address Patient Provider Conflicts in Health Care, Armand H. Matheny Antommaria

Doctors and Lawyers: Pathways to Collaboration 

•  Physicians: Listen Up and Take Your Communication Skills Training Seriously, Bobbi McAdoo
•  "He's Such a Jerk": Education as a Response to Professionally Inappropriate Behavior, Charles B. Wiggins
•  Encouraging Physician-Attorney Collaboration Through More Explicit Professional Standards, Linda Mortan, Howard Taras & Vivian Reznick
•  Doctors as Advocates, Lawyers as Healers, Charity Scott

•  Healthcare Conflict Management: An Obligation of the Board, Dale C. Hetzler & Carly Record
•  Beyond Apology to Early Non-Judicial Resolution: The MedicOm Program as a Patient Safety-Focused Alternative to Malpractice Litigation, Carole S. Houk & Lauren M. Edelstein

•  Follow the Money: The Impact of Consumer Choice and Economic Incentives on Conflict Resolution in Health Care, David R. Riemer
•  To Pay or Not to Pay, That is the Question: Coverage Disputes Between Health Plans and Members, James P. Jacobson