Attendee Justification Toolkit

Travel and training budgets at many facilities have been significantly reduced, and some organizations continue to limit expenditures related to training and development. If you need to justify the expense and time commitment of the NAHAM 42nd Annual Conference, here are some things you might want to consider:

·  Before meeting with your supervisor, prepare a plan that shows who will cover your duties while you attend the conference

·  Focus on what you will specifically bring back to your facility as a direct result of attending the conference.

·  Offer to prepare and deliver a short presentation and Q&A session for your colleagues to share what you learned. This way, your coworkers will also receive the benefits of your attendance.

·  Share speaker handouts with your colleagues. As an attendee, you have unlimited access to presenter materials, which are easily downloadable once you return home.

·  If you are working to obtain or maintain the CHAM or CHAA credential, remind your supervisor that this is a great way to earn up to 22 NAHAM Contact Hours, and is less expensive and less time consuming than registering for individual Contact Hour opportunities

·  Offer to share a room to reduce hotel expenses by finding a roommate on the Share a Room group in the NAHAM Access Forum.

How to Justify Conference Attendance

As a manager, how do you propose any allocation of resources in your organization? It comes down to two things:

1. Expense (the “investment”)
2. Return on Investment (ROI)

The following provides some easy-to-use tools to help you calculate the investment required for the NAHAM 42nd Annual Conference, and will help to identify your return.

Understanding and Determining Your Conference Expenses

Conference expenses are affected by a number of factors. Before you can justify your expenses, you need to calculate what they will be! To do so, use the Expense Worksheet on the next page to develop an estimate for attending the conference. Once you determine expenses you can prepare to make a case for the return on the investment.
Expense Worksheet – Calculate Your Participation Costs

Expense Area and Guideline / Cost
Conference Registration
·  NAHAM Member Before March 18 – $595
·  Member After March 18 – $645
·  Non-Member Before March 18 – $795
·  Non-Member After March 18 – $845
Don’t forget – NAHAM offers a group member rate! Visit our website to learn more. / $
Optional Pre-conference Symposia:
NAHAM University (lunch provided):
Member - $80
Non-Member - $95
Point of Service Collections or Patient Identity Symposium:
Member - $60
Non-Member - $85
Note: NAHAM University takes place earlier in the day than the POS Collections and Patient Identity symposia. The POS Collections and Patient Identity symposia will occur at the same time. Each attendee can register for NAHAM University and ONE symposium. / $
Flight
Visit a travel website to estimate your flight cost. / $
Lodging
Conference attendees receive a special rate of $199 per room at the Sheraton New Orleans. Consider sharing your room with a colleague to reduce costs. Rate is exclusive of sales and occupancy taxes. The reservation deadline is May 4, 2016. / $
Transportation to and from the Conference
·  Taxis are available at Louis Armstrong International, and the average fare to the Sheraton New Orleans is $36 for 1 or 2 guests, or $15 per person for three or more guests.
You may reserve a shared ride service through the New Orleans Airport Shuttle. Rates are $24 per person one way or $44 per person round trip.
·  Parking: Valet parking service is available for guests for $40 per day plus tax. / $
Mileage Reimbursement
Driving to the conference or to the airport for your flight? Use Google Maps to calculate distances, and then multiply the miles by .54 cents per mile (IRS standard 2016 rate). / $
Meals
Meals offered at the conference include:
-  Continental breakfasts
-  Industry Symposia breakfast/lunch
-  Tuesday lunch in exhibit hall
-  Wednesday morning breakfast
Enter what you might think you need for additional meals that aren’t covered. / $
Subtotal Per Person / $
Total number of employees attending
Total Cost / $

Understanding the Benefits

Let’s face it: many benefits from conference attendance are hard to quantify. If an employee came to you and said, “I would like $2,000 in funding for a conference, but I don’t know what it’ll do for our facility,” you would likely scoff at the offer.

Experts agree that the top benefit of attending the NAHAM Conference is networking. Where else can you find so many peers facing the same issues as your facility? Are there solutions you’re not aware of? Although networking is undoubtedly the most important aspect of a conference, it is also the toughest to quantify.

When you propose your attendance at the NAHAM conference for supervisor approval, don’t focus on how much you want to go; focus on what you will specifically bring back to your organization as payback for the investment.

Some specific details you’ll need to identify include:

·  Learning Labs. What sessions have particular relevance to the work you do? Which do you think can teach you a skill, and/or help your team overcome current or future challenges? Look at the Learning Labs that will be offered at the conference, provide examples of session titles, and be prepared to explain to your supervisor why you feel these sessions could benefit your facility.

·  Exhibiting companies. What companies exhibiting in the Access Solutions Showcase will be demonstrating the tools you use or are evaluating for potential future use? Is this an opportunity for you to compare competing tools? Do any of the companies participating in the Industry-Sponsored Symposia sessions offer products and services that you are considering, or that you may feel may be of interest at your facility?

Quantifying the Benefits

Although YOU might understand the benefits of the 42nd Annual Conference, your manager may need more information. Therefore, to most effectively justify the conference, you need to clearly articulate the connection between your organization’s needs and the conference program. Don’t assume your manager will be able to automatically make those distinctions!

To support this process, use the following worksheet to help you identify and elaborate on the benefits of the NAHAM Annual Conference. Use the sections that make sense for your facility, and omit the rest.

Benefits Worksheet

Benefits to Your Organization / Specify your Needs and list the Education Sessions that Meet those Needs
Networking Benefits / This conference will allow [specific team members] to network with other Patient Access professionals and key vendors in the industry. We will be able to take the pulse of what is happening around the country, and will learn about tools, technologies, and strategies, that other individuals have used to solve issues similar to ours.
Teambuilding (if sending a big part of your group) / This conference will help build our team, providing a forum for us to grow and learn together. The time we spend in New Orleans will also be an opportunity to discuss how we might apply what we learn in our facility to improve our products, workflow, and processes.
Current Tools
Future Tools Exploration
Current Technologies
Future Technologies Exploration
Current Processes
Future Processes Exploration
Suppliers with Tools & Technologies You Are Exploring / Visit our web site to see the list of confirmed exhibitors (available in February, 2015). List here those whose products and services you’d like to learn more about.

It’s all in the Selling

After you have identified specific knowledge benefits, it’s time to provide both the expenses and benefits to your manager to evaluate your proposition. Feel free to use the letter on the next page as a starting point to present your case!


Letter to Manager

< Date >

Dear < supervisor’s name >,

I would like to attend the National Association of Healthcare Access Management’s 42nd Annual Conference and Exposition, taking place May 24-27 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This meeting is the premiere educational event in Patient Access Services, and is an opportunity for me to attend a wide array of education sessions that are directly applicable to my work, and to network with a variety of experts and colleagues from across the country.

Many of the presentations deliver information on how to < list benefits to your responsibilities >, and I am confident that what I learn in New Orleans will be directly applicable to my work at <facility>. I am seeking sponsorship for the registration fee and travel expenses for the conference. A detailed cost breakdown is listed below.

After reviewing the conference program online, I have identified a number of education sessions that will provide information on improving our processes here at <facility name>. The presentations are facilitated by both industry experts and Patient Access colleagues who have faced similar challenges.

I chose each of these presentations because they are directly related to an issue we are currently dealing with. Incidentally, I have only listed some of the sessions that I will attend. Including them all would make this memo much too long. The sessions are as follows:

·  Learning Lab 1

·  Learning Lab 2

·  Learning Lab 3

·  Learning Lab 4

·  Learning Lab 5

< You will need to insert the Learning Labs that most apply to your responsibilities or to topics you have identified as challenges in your facility. >

< The numbers in brackets below will need to be adjusted to reflect the current pricing. All registration fees are listed here. The travel costs vary as well and should be changed to reflect your costs. >

< You will need to insert your travel cost numbers in here >

Here is the breakdown of conference costs:
Registration (before March 18): <$xxxx>
Round-trip Airfare: <$xxxx>
Transportation: <$xxxx>
Hotel: <$xxxx>
Meals: <$xxxx>
The total costs associated with attending this conference are: <$xxxx>.

The opportunity for me to develop better contacts and gain knowledge in specific areas makes my attendance at NAHAM’s conference a wise investment, which will yield rich dividends for < name of your organization >. Please let me know if you have any questions, or would like more information on the NAHAM conference.

Sincerely,

< your name here >