Hi, Lactnetters! I am in LC private practice and want to help my clients
get coverage for my services. Periodically I "attack" medical insurance
companies to try to make them more BF friendly. Recently, I have had mixed
messages about one insurance company which had been regularly covering LC
services. ( I don't know if I am allowed to name the co. so I won't). I had
heard from another LC that they were no longer  going to cover LC services.
After a few phone calls to  this co. I got onto the mother's call-in
hotline, the "Healthy Mother, Healthy Baby Dept". I had been told that
nurses in that dept monitored outcomes. So I asked to speak to one such
person. I wanted to suggest that they do a study of outcomes in common
childhood diseases such as otitis media comparing exclusively breastfed,
partially breastfed and abm-fed infants. I suggested that the findings
could lead them to significant money savings. i.e. support  BF & cover LC
services and save on medical costs for these children.
I was told that I should PUT MY IDEAS INTO THE FORM OF A PROPOSAL  and send
it to them.They have called my bluff! What do I do now? Although unnerved
by the resonse it IS an opportunity, if only I knew how to use it! Have any
of you done or seen such a thing? It sounds like I am being asked to design
a research study. HELP!
TIA (thanks, in anticipation).
Shalom, Margot C. Mann IBCLC New York.