Meeting with Coventry
Steve Eckstat, D.O.

The day-to-day experience of juggling a busy practice and complying with the increasing demands of the managed care industry has proven to be a tremendous burden on most practitioners. The process is often time consuming and frustrating for everyone involved. The patients are being denied medications or services ordered by their physician, the managed care company is bombarded by requests and the physicians are being used as human shields to deflect the anger and frustration produced by the seemingly never ending requirements of the insurance companies.

Realizing that no one is happy in this current environment, an offer to meet was extended and graciously accepted by the CEO and Medical Director of Coventry Insurance. Many insurance companies play a major role in our day-to-day frustration, but it was Coventry's recent decision to require prior approval for the use of proton pump inhibitors that seem to create the greatest amount of disruption to our daily office routines. This decision became the impetus to call for our first managed care prior approval meeting. Hopefully other insurance companies will agree to meet with us as well.

The meeting was held at the PCMS offices on February 27, 2002. T