Frequently Asked Questions

Arbitration: A form of ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) whereby a privately selected neutral person or persons listens in a relatively confidential setting to two or more disputants and then issues a decision. The arbiter is chosen by the disputants and the procedures can be created to suit the needs of the case. This process is entirely confidential.

Mediation: A process that allows the parties to maintain control of the decision-making, while utilizing an additional party to help make the process work. The intervention of an impartial and neutral third party who has no authoritative decision-making power allows the parties to negotiate in a safe climate where all concerns, interests, ideas and information can be heard. The parties are then able to reach their own mutually acceptable settlement of the issues in dispute.

1) What is the MAARSS Group and what does it do?

We provide alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services to the healthcare arena. The MAARSS Group (Mediation And Arbitration Resolution Solution Specialists) works with you to develop and present workable resolutions to destructive conflicts experienced amongst individuals and communities within the healthcare industry through education, coaching, facilitation, mediation and arbitration. We are an effective blend of physicians, nurses, attorneys, administrators and consultants with expert knowledge and experience combined with a strong emphasis in core-managed safer patient care and quality outcome systems.

2) What are the points of difference between the MAARSS Group and others?

• We focus exclusively on the healthcare industry's related issues, complexities and allied healthcare organizations. That is what we know and understand through our specific professional fields of study and work experience. We believe that provides a unique blend of professional resources for you.
• We bring life experiences from so many different origins and sectors; the public, the private, the business, the personal, the elderly and the young.
• We enrich the value and the benefit to our clients through a closed loop system by sharing the advancements of conflict management resolution with our business development team. The result enriches the mediator and the business expert with the core value of caring and placing the client's needs always above our own.
• When a mistake happens the frustration of dealing with multiple button pushing and inexperienced people is avoided. One call resolves the problem.
• We educate, we inform and we show and also tell you what to do, why you should do it and how to do it so that all of your people aim higher, demand better of themselves to enrich your business and it's valued relationships. This assists you to prosper and be viewed as efficient, caring and valuable to each customer.
• We do not allow any customer to waste their time, their money, their existing relatioships or their effort if we do not believe that we bring more value or benefit than what they already have.We then believe you can appreciate the significance and possible accomplishment of what is in it for you.
• The agony, the emotional toll, the financial drain, the ongoing concern regarding increasing healthcare premiums concerns us deeply. Our collaborative expertise helps to clear a pathway for all interested stakeholders to start reaching consensus on goals to defeat this cancerous blight.

3) How experienced is this group?

Collectively, we have more than 515 years of practicing healthcare experience and that doesn't even include the years of professional education in our distinct fields of study. In addition, members of our group have held administrative and leadership work positions within the industry and professional organizations. Beyond this focused healthcare experience, our members have continued to expand their knowledge into the field of conflict management and alternative dispute resolution. Many provide education and training on conflict management as well as have published in professional journals. They are committed to effective conflict management.

4) Is there any instance in which mediation / arbitration is not appropriate?

Possibly: Mediation / Arbitration may not be appropriate when a legal precedent is needed. Yet even that perception is being challenged today within the ADR and legal community.

5) Will you briefly explain what the group's Multiparty Model is and why it is helpful to the healthcare industry?

The MAARSS Multiparty Model is unique and creative! This model shows how imbalances of power that do occur in today’s organizations affect major and essential working relationships within various healthcare organizations. An imbalance of power will create negative consequences for patient safety and care, professional relationships, organizational dynamics and bottom line expenses. By redesigning processes for effective communications and patient care in hospitals and other settings, this model serves to rebalance professional relationships by collectively working to create solutions for quality performance focused on patient centered care.

6) Is the MAARSS Group available to consult, mediate and facilitate outside the Rocky Mountain area?

Yes.

7) Why is a dollar value of importance to a prospective client?

The motivation for any organization seeking our help is to resolve a problem. Every organization must practice a risk management strategy to ensure survival. The problem's resolution can be measured in dollars and cents. Some negative outcome expenses can be directly measured such as employee turn-over, EEO complaints, and professional negligence cases. Yet, a hidden cost of ineffective conflict management is not as easy to quantify. Professional, organizational and client relationships that are destroyed are difficult to rebuild and are costly- in dollars and cents as well as expended negative emotions and mistrust. We understand and support your goal to get the proper value for the money invested.

8) Can the MAARSS Group link me to credible information showing direct benefits of ADR/Conflict Management regarding safer patient care, improved quality outcomes and financial bottom line improvement?

As the healthcare industry and allied services learn about and experience the new application of ADR services to manage conflict, it becomes increasingly apparent that when conflict remains unresolved; the end result leads to financial and market share losses, reduction of patient care quality and increased employee frustration and dysfunction. What other industries have learned and have proven is that when parties in conflict utilize ADR services with a focus on early intervention-specifically mediation- they effectively resolve their problems more than 80% of the time. This method of conflict resolution results in cost effective benefits for the parties and the organization and leads to improvement of future conflict issues.

The following examples allow you to access and evaluate the current achievable benefits of A.D.R.:

Typical cost savings is 30-35%. (Berwick D.M.: As good as it should get: Making Healthcare Better in the New Millenium. Washington, D.C.: National Coalition on Healthcare; 1998)

Maryland's Mediation and Conflict Resolution office (MACRO)recently published a study in May of 2004 showing that the average cost of defending a litagated employment claim is $130,000 and takes 2.5 years for a civil trial to begin.

The American Arbitration Association (AAA) sponsored a new study entitled "DISPUTE-WISE BUSINESS MANAGEMENT : IMPROVING ECONOMIC AND NON-ECONOMIC OUTCOMES IN MANAGING BUSINESS CONFLICTS" (.PDF file) investigating the practices, attitudes and experiences of corporate legal departments from Fortune 1000 companies, mid-sized public companies and privately-held businesses in A.D.R. resoultion. The research firm Clark, Martire, Bartolomeo and Shulman involved 254 general and associate general counsel. This was drawn from 101 Fortune 1000 companies with revenues from $690 million to $9.09 billion and showed a wide range of benefits (more positive employee benefits, better customer and business partner relationships and lower costs.) In addition, the survey noticed interesting correlations between dispute-wise business management and positive economic advantages. Legal departments that took an entire range of issues approach to resolving disputes appear to garner several distinct benefits: minimize overall risks, cost, time spent and resources.

Percentage of occurances where money is saved - 91% using mediation, 71% using arbitration

Percentage of occurances where time is saved - 84% using mediation, 73% using arbitration

Richard Naimark, Senior Vice President of the AAA stated: "it is clear that dispute companies monitor these key business relationships and approach dispute resolution with that strategic focus in mind."

Our healthcare experience and professional skills assist you to identify, develop, and manage your organizational model. We introduce the benefits of creating new interest based negotiation techniques into everyday decision making. Doesn’t this make sense for you to develop a more efficient and effective process for early intervention to manage destructive conflicts and prevent negative outcomes?

9) Why is employee satisfaction within a company of such importance to the MAARSS Group?

Financial performance of any company is directly related to: 1) the quality of professional services, and 2) the relationship of employees to their clients. We recognize that the overall satisfaction of any company's employees is directly related to the client’s satisfaction with the services provided. The relationship between the significant impact of a company's culture and the performance of its employees are directly related. Employee satisfaction (those who feel truly valued and appreciated) is directly related to employee satisfaction, productivity, and positive client services. Companies that manage people well outperform their competitors by 30-40 percent.

Employee satisfaction is created and driven by high professional standards, organizational integrity, quality services to clients served and a company culture that values their employees by encouraging collaboration and early intervention for conflict management.