WHO WE ARE

National Infusion Center Association (NICA) is a nonprofit trade association and the nation’s voice for non-hospital, community-based infusion providers that offer a safe, more affordable alternative to hospital care settings for provider-administered medications.

NICA has been the nation’s voice for infusion access since 2010, overcoming countless barriers to care, access obstacles, and threats to our nation’s non-hospital, community-based delivery channel for provider-administered medications. The NICA team was instrumental in reversing several immediate threats in recent years that would have carried profound economic implications and significantly reduced access to care.

NICA is dedicated to ensuring that the nation’s infusion centers remain a safe, more efficient, and more cost-effective alternative to hospital settings for consistent, high-quality care.

WHAT WE DO

NICA’s efforts are focused on delivery channel sustainability and expansion, buy-and-bill protection, maintaining net positive reimbursement, improving treatment adherence, and promoting patient safety and care quality.

We support policies that improve drug affordability for beneficiaries, increase price transparency, reduce disparities in quality of care and safety across care settings, and enable care delivery in the highest-quality, lowest-cost care setting.

Our goal is to help decision makers understand the value of receiving provider-administered medications in non-hospital care settings and ensure that the community-based infusion center remains a safe, more efficient, and more cost-effective alternative to hospital care settings.

  • Build relationships with key influencers and decision-makers based on the value that delivering provider-administered medications in office-based care settings brings to the health care system, patients, and payors;
  • Ensure the preservation of a viable, efficient, and cost-effective non-hospital delivery channel for provider-administered medications;
  • Identify, address, and overcome internal and external threats to the sustainability of non-hospital care settings for provider-administered medications;
  • Protect the buy-and-bill model, ensure appropriate and sustainable reimbursement, and support infusion providers’ professional interests;
  • Protect the provider-patient relationship and clinicians’ prescribing authority from harmful PBM and insurer practices;
  • Develop and promote industry standards to reduce disparities in quality of care and safety to support access to consistent, high-quality medication preparations in a safe environment across all care settings;
  • Promote strategies to improve treatment adherence;
  • Reduce waste, unnecessary complexity, and administrative burden associated with billing and insurance-related activities; and,
  • Tenaciously advocate and lobby for responsible medical benefit reform.

MEET OUR TEAM

Brian Place Holder

BRIAN NYQUIST, MPH

chief executive officer

Brian oversees operations and runs the NICA headquarters in Austin, Texas. Brian is dedicated to building relationships with providers, industry members and other advocacy organizations in order to collaboratively help key decision-makers understand the value of receiving provider-administered medications in non-hospital care settings, and ensure that the community-based Infusion Center remains a safe, more efficient, and more cost-effective alternative to hospital care settings.

Chris Counts

CHRIS COUNTS

chief operating officer

Chris oversees the strategic operational planning and outreach of the organization to ensure NICA meets and exceeds the expectations and needs of all stakeholder groups. He works with each team member to ensure their programs are advancing the mission and vision of NICA.

Kaitey Morgan Website

KAITEY MORGAN, RN, BSN, CRNI

chief clinical officer

Kaitey oversees the NICA Standards for In-Office Infusion, developing resources and training materials to support NICA’s provider members in their pursuit of clinical excellence. She also collaborates with the team to create patient and provider educational materials and brings a clinical perspective to NICA’s online forums and advocacy efforts.

Kindyl Boyer

KINDYL BOYER, MPP

director, advocacy

Kindyl works to multiply NICA’s advocacy efforts at the state and federal levels. She also works to expand the organization’s education program by curating existing materials and identifying deficits which she will fill with useful, organic content.

Ashley_Headshot

ASHLEY KANA

member relations

Ashley is working to help NICA achieve its mission by establishing a nationwide network of contacts within the infusion industry. In addition to this, she ensures the Infusion Center Locator is as up to date and comprehensive as possible, along with driving Provider Membership.

RACHEL DUNN

RACHEL DUNN

member relations manager

Rachel works to strengthen NICA’s Provider Membership program by engaging with infusion providers and connecting them with valuable benefits and resources. She also maintains relationships with industry and strategic stakeholders in order to maximize value for members.

Alex Brown NICA Communications Coordinator

ALEX BROWN

communications coordinator

Alex ensures that NICA strategically and professionally communicates its advocacy and support efforts to providers, industry members, and partners as well as other invested organizations. He also works with the internal team to help produce high-quality, engaging, and useful print and digital media that amplifies the voice of community-based infusion providers.

Stephanie Santos

STEPHANIE SANTOS

chief of staff

Stephanie works to optimize organizational efficiency, supporting President and CEO, Brian Nyquist, in his coordination with all ongoing NICA projects and activities. She will also support external partnerships and work with other NICA departments to provide feedback that ensures the organization’s work is as relevant and beneficial as possible for its stakeholders.

Monica Parsons, RN, BSN

MONICA PARSONS, RN, BSN

director of clinical education

Monica Parsons, RN, BSN is the Director of Clinical Education at NICA. Ms. Parsons is focused on developing resources and training material to support infusion and stakeholders. As an infusion therapy nurse, she has served as both Clinical Resource Manager for an MSO and Director of Quality and Compliance. Ms. Parsons has successfully led multiple ambulatory infusion clinics through accreditation programs designed by and for the ambulatory infusion industry.

OUR STANCE ON IMPORTANT TOPICS

The non-hospital, community-based infusion delivery channel represents the most economical care setting for provider-administered medications. Ensuring that these care settings remain economically viable to meet the demands of today’s market, as well as tomorrow’s, will be critical to reducing burden, cost, and wasteful consumption within our healthcare system.

 NICA will SUPPORT measures to make it easier for the most economical care setting to accommodate existing patient demand, and measures to allow for market expansion to build the capacity required to accommodate the patient demand of tomorrow.

 NICA will OPPOSE changes that would make it harder for providers to treat existing patients and/or expand to treat additional patient populations.

The delivery channel’s capacity largely relies on the buy-and-bill model to support the community-based infusion care model. The delivery channel does not have the capacity to meet tomorrow’s demands as the R&D pipeline grows richer with complex provider-administered medication formulations. Patients have waited long enough for these innovative therapies and the hope they bring; they cannot afford to lose access to the lowest cost site of care option, nor should they have to. Protecting and preserving the buy-and-bill model is critical for the future of chronic disease management, population health, and a sustainable health care system.

 NICA will SUPPORT provider choice and autonomy to acquire drugs using the model most conducive to effective and efficient patient care coordination.

 NICA will OPPOSE specialty pharmacy mandates and other broad models that reduce efficiency, limit provider choice, increase administrative burden, increase cost, and/or add waste.

Maintaining viable economics in lower cost alternatives to hospital-affiliated care settings is critical in improving the affordability and accessibility of provider-administered medications. The current reimbursement environment is volatile with increasingly pressurized atmosphere to reduce medical benefit drug spend, reduce or remove drug payments, and reduce reimbursement for professional services. The infusion care model economics, particularly professional service reimbursement, must keep pace with inflation to cover practice expenses.

NICA will SUPPORT:

  1. Responsible (net positive) reimbursement;
  2. Reimbursement of professional services at high-level CPT codes;
  3. Supplementary payment models (e.g., physician office facility fee, monthly patient management fee) to keep providers whole.

NICA will OPPOSE policies that will result in reductions in net reimbursement.

Treatment adherence is a significant factor influencing increased health spend through sub-optimal disease management, particularly among our nation’s sickest and most vulnerable patients managing complex, chronic diseases—like autoimmune conditions—resulting in poor health outcomes, reduced quality of life, and increased physical, emotional, and economic burden of disease.

NICA members strive to deliver the safe, high-quality infusion care their patients deserve. To that end, NICA is proud to have published the industry’s first standards of care for office-based infusion, and continues to develop resources to support providers’ efforts to meet those standards and achieve clinical excellence.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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BRIAN NYQUIST, MPH

president
Reece Headshot (Dec 2020)

REECE NORRIS, JD

secretary
Charlie Schadewald Headshot

CHARLIE SCHADEWALD

board director
DG-

DAVID GOODALL

board director
Christine Mann Headshot

CHRISTINE MANN

board director
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JOSH SMITH

board director

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