KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Legal Advocacy and Compliance in a Changing World: Updates and a view ahead from the APA Practice Organization
Alan Nessman, Senior Special Counsel, APA Practice Organization
This talk will highlight key legal and regulatory issues handled by Practice’s Office of Legal & Regulatory Affairs that impact practicing psychologists and their patients now, and in the future as the health care system transforms. This will help psychologists understand legal issues and trends that will impact their care of patients and/or compliance with applicable laws and regulations. These issues include: parity implementation and managed care, healthcare reform and HITECH and electronic health records (EHRs).
Alan Nessman is Senior Special Counsel to the APA Practice Directorate’s Office of Legal & Regulatory Affairs. He has been with APA since 2000. He handles issues involving insurance and managed care, including antitrust, parity and reimbursement. He also manages APA Practice Organization litigation against health insurers. Mr. Nessman also works on other legal and policy issues including HIPAA, HTIECH and patient privacy, licensure, recordkeeping and parenting coordination.
Prior to coming to APA, he had 15 years of diverse law firm litigation experience both for and against insurance companies. Mr. Nessman earned his JD from George Washington University in 1984 and his BA from the University of Chicago in 1980.
Plenary Session: Comprehensive Soldier Fitness: Making a Difference for Soldiers
Michael Matthews, PhD, United States Military Academy
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a U.S. Army initiative designed to provide soldiers with the skills needed to cope successfully with the challenges of combat and its aftereffects. The purpose of this plenary session is to thoroughly describe CSF and to discuss ways that psychologists who are not associated with the military may leverage CSF principles to help veterans adjust when they return to the civilian sector. Based on positive psychology principles, CSF emphasizes a proactive approach to health and well-being, and may provide the state and local mental healthcare communities another strategy for helping our over two million combat veterans to adjust successfully to their post-military lives.
Michael D. Matthews, PhD is currently a professor of engineering psychology at the United States Military Academy. He is a former Air Force officer with tours of duty at the U.S. Air Force Human Resources Laboratory and as a faculty member at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Dr. Matthews was selected as a Templeton Foundation Positive Psychology Fellow and much of his research focuses on applying Positive Psychology principles to military contexts. He is on the Science Advisory Board for the Military Child Education Coalition, and served as President of the American Psychological Association’s Division of Military Psychology from 2007 to 2008. Collectively, his research interests center on Soldier performance in combat and other dangerous contexts.
Dr. Matthews is a regular consultant to senior Army leadership on matters pertaining to soldier and leader performance and psychological fitness. Recently, he has consulted with the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army on the development of a strategic plan to improve the psychological fitness of soldiers, their families and of Army civilians. Based on principles of positive psychology, the Army has launched the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) program. A model of corporate fitness, the CSF focuses on the building and enriching of human strengths, their assessment, and evidence-based methods of enhancing the emotional, social, family, and spiritual fitness of Army personnel. Dr. Matthews recently co-edited a special issue of the American Psychologist (v. 66, January 2011) that describes this monumental program.