Managed Care Merger

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama, REDLANDS, Calif. -- MedPartners/Mullikin, Inc. has announced it will acquire Pacific Physician Services, Inc., the first publicly-traded multispecialty physician group in the U.S., for approximately $332 million. The combined enterprise will be the largest physician-oriented prepaid delivery system in the country with approximately 4,800 physicians and 680,000 prepaid members. The merger still must pass regulatory and shareholder approval.

MedPartners/Mullikin, Inc. develops and manages integrated health care through its network of group and IPA physicians. MPTR currently operates primary care and specialty practices in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington.

Founded in 1983, Pacific Physician Services, Inc. is a physician practice management company which organizes and manages physicians and medical groups that provides and manages prepaid health care to approximately 313,000 HMO enrollees through a network of 310 group physicians at 54 sites in California, Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina. The company also manages more than 400 physicians in hospital-based groups in the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest.

The Chiropractic Council of Japan and the Chiropractic Federation of Japan co-sponsored a chiropractic centennial meeting in Tokyo on November 18-19. Dr. Scott Haldeman, chairman of the World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) and former associate clinical professor at the University of California at Irvine's neurology department, and Dr. Bruce Vaughan, representing the WFC, were guest speakers at the meeting. Approximately 400 people attended.

The meeting was a step toward the 1997 World Chiropractic Congress, which will be held in Tokyo.

Dr. Lewis Mock, DC, a practitioner from Colorado Springs, Colorado, recently returned from a nine day trip to the Republic of South Korea where he had been invited to be a guest instructor for the Korean International Chiropractic Institute (KICI). Dr. Yang Hongmo, the president of KICI, invited Dr. Mock to South Korea to instruct on methods of myofascial release techniques. Chiropractic is relatively new science in South Korea and is mainly practiced by medical doctors who take postgraduate courses to become certified in chiropractic manipulation. Dr. Mock taught a two-day seminar in Seoul to about 35 MD students, including Dr. Park, the head orthopedic surgeon for the Seoul Olympics, and he also taught several condensed seminars, including one for a group of doctors of oriental medicine.

"I was amazed at the enthusiasm that the doctors in Korea had for the information I was sharing with them," said Dr. Mock. "It made me very proud to be a chiropractor. I realized how much chiropractic is taken for granted here in the United States where everyone has access to it."

South Korea has eight DCs in a country of 44.5 million.

Dr. Stephen Simonetti, a 1993 Life graduate (valedictorian) and founding member of the New York Chiropractic Council, was honored at the Council's annual convention with its "Beacon Award." The award is given for outstanding and unselfish service to chiropractic, the Council, and fellow chiropractors. Dr. Simonetti served as a district representative for the Council for five years, and then moved on to the executive board. He is perhaps best known for contributing his services to collect food for HOPE (Helping Other People Eat), which for the past four years has raised 50,000 pounds of food for hungry New York residents.

The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) held its third International Conference on Anti-Aging Medicine and Biomedical Technology on December 9-11 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota and Oklahoma State University, the meeting attracted over 100 of the world's scientists and physicians to discuss advances made in anti-aging. Among the keynote speakers were Drs. William Regelson and Walter Pierpaoli, co-authors of The Melatonin Miracle; Vincent Giampapa, MD, a plastic surgeon and co-developer of Biomarker Biomatrix technology; and Ben Weider, PhD, president of the International Federation of Bodybuilders. Dr. Weider presented A4M with a check for $100,000 to initiate a campaign for anti-aging research studies.

The A4M 1996 international conference will be in Madrid, Spain, June 14-16, 1996. For more information contact:

Dr. Rafael Santonja Gomez
Marques de Lema 13
28003 Madrid
Spain
Tel. (from US) 011 34 1 536 00 18
Fax (from US) 011 34 1 533 47 67

The fourth National Ergonomics Exposition and Conference, presented by Kotch and Poliak of New York City, will be held April 9-11 in Chicago, Illinois. The conference will focus on the products, processes, and issues that can help reduce job injuries and workers' compensation claims. For more information call (212) 486-6186.

The purchase of three buildings adjacent to the existing 23-acre campus in Dallas, Texas will expand Parker College of Chiropractic's BETA campus by nearly 40,000 square feet. The space is slated for eventual enlargement of offices for faculty and administration, and new quarters for the maintenance department.