Right at the very beginning you see RAM USA (Remote Area Medical) headed up by Stan Brock and the free clinics they sponsor all over the US. I have done quite a few posts that promote their events for reader awareness and at almost every free clinic they put on, they are begging for more dentists as they can never get enough. People looking for dental care at the free clinics usually have jobs too but can’t afford the dental work. The free clinics were in Oakland in March of this year and they had plenty of empty dental chairs, due to a lack of dental volunteers. When RAM had their clinics in the Los Angeles area the USC dentistry school kicked in big time. “Remote Area Medical–California” Begins Four Day Free Medical Clinic in Oakland–Volunteers Needed
1200 children a year get their dental care under general anesthesia in Florida every year and it is due to one of the lowest compensation rates in the US. Only around 10% of the dentists in Florida will accept Medicaid. Doctors look into getting enrolled in the system but reimbursement is 20% of what the dentist would normally get. Half the kids in the US rely on Medicaid for dental care. Corporate dental chains are offering some relief in some areas that take children that are on Medicaid only. Kool Smiles is one that is backed by private equity. One office manager said she enjoyed working there at the start but then it turned into a dollar system and the company computer system tracks production to the absolute minute detail. The company survives on Medicaid reimbursements. Some dentists said the chain encourages the use of crowns as they pay better, whether or not the child needs it or not.
Part One
With children under 9 the chain used 50% more crowns than normal when compared to other dental providers. Critics say the Kool Smiles business model is at the root of some of the care problems. It’s better than the alternative which would be zero but it’s cattle mill dentistry as dentists get bonuses based on how much revenue they bring in.
Part Two
Small Smiles was another chain that was also backed by private equity and in Connecticut they were threatened with “malpractice” and things cleaned up a bit. There’s an interview in the video with Grassley looking into the care. When you listen to one of the folks interviewed about quality it sounds rehearsed about “how we care about quality”. Watch and make your own opinion.
There’s a non profit group in Alabama that has 15 clinics who are
trying to help out and there’s no bonus system and dentists get paid a salary on whether or not they see zero patients or a number of the every day and they rely on Medicaid. The bonus here is that children get preventive care here. They hope to move the model to other states. Alabama Medicaid seems to be enough for this group with their model as they don’t have to make a profit. Similar to nurse practitioners the dental business in Minnesota is trying the same thing, they do fewer procedures than a full on dentist. They go through training as does a dentist for the most part. People are getting treated that would normally not get treatment and this is the only state with dental therapists.
Part Three
Adults are having to go to the ER room to get prescriptions for infected teeth. Over a million patients a year end up in the emergency room. Aspen dental is another corporate dental chain for adults. They specialize in dentures and make them in the office and the office managers sell healthcare credit cards. GE backs the credit cards and the dentist gets paid right away for the entire care once the patient signs the contract.
The credit cards are very high interest and it begins even before the dental work begins. We are back to the parameters of the “algorithms” on how this kicks in.
29.9% is the interest rate if a payment was missed and they paid a 175k settlement and Andrew Cuomo was in the picture on this one as well. Aspen has “pay for performance” on how much they convince patients to do with work and bonuses are paid monthly. The question is are they doing the right things for care with big carrots hanging there? Doctor’s get a percentage of the profit but the office manager bonuses are the ones doing the sales job and set up with credit cards. Some offices have “quotas” and this sound like some hospitals who tried this with admitting quotas of sorts.
Part Four
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dollars-and-dentists/
leave the hospital with profound weakness from their acute and chronic medical conditions (and unfortunately without a 
, HER2-negative breast cancer. The European Medicines Agency in June also endorsed Afinitor as a breast cancer treatment. 
myeloma and solid tumors. To date, the agent has generated a positive efficacy signal in multiple clinical studies with an encouraging safety profile, including low rates of neuropathy. 
You can take credible data and really get some great information and knowledge if queried properly with information that has not been spun for marketing. Does that data exist today, sure it does but the problem of figuring out what is “accurate” versus “desired” is a chore and a bit of work. Programming is just like anything else in life on which path anyone chooses, you can work to create solutions and use credible data or you can choose the alternative route for those “desired” results and probably pocket billions of dollars. The average consumer has no clue on how this has evolved over the last few years but algorithms move and make money. You can’t see the algorithms, talk to them, etc. and some go rouge here and there. 
with FICO who is already in the process of selling algorithms with mismatched data which connects public information about you and combines it with your credit score to tell if you as a medical patient will take your prescriptions. Somebody needs to start calling some of these folks on “mis matched data” the discriminates as now we have “Discrimination by the Algorithm” and it’s showing in more places all the time. As far as I am concerned the FICO Medication Adherence Scoring is nothing but mismatched data analytics created to sell software and is the work of some “underground” think tanks on how to generate more money and profits. It makes one wonder how gullible the pharma and insurance business if if they buy into this and pay money for such analytics? 
is something that is out there digging around in more ways than one. Sure sometimes you can be crunching numbers and run across something has does have some real outstanding value when looking at groups of people but the weird part of some of this now is that folks are taking crunched numbers that offer some intelligence and bringing it down to the individual level to “score” and rate people and this is the problem as there’s data in there used for predictive forecasting that is not credible. 
In my opinion it makes for clutter confusion for the consumer on the web as it all depends on who’s opinion you want to buy in to. Combining data for comparison is certainly ok but can leave out the rankings? I had to laugh yesterday at all the articles out there about Johns Hopkins slipping to number 2 with all the additional opinion pieces this created. A couple weeks ago I said the rating game is getting to be old news and somewhat useless as more “flawed data” enters the picture and it depends again on who’s opinion you want to buy in to. 
heard the stories about brokers committing suicide, etc. when they are questioned as most of them don’t really understand the processes they used but they become millionaires doing it. We had the man who did the drama queen case and took a poison pill on national TV and then yesterday I ran across this USB broker who used sling shots to deal with his stress. What are we doing out there and what are we creating? 
to sell us on what we know is not true as they created statistics, reports, etc. in order to sell some of this for money. Remember when Colbert and Stewart had their big show about bringing back sanity? Guess what that’s what their show was all about in the roots of what they were trying to say. Shoot they did this show back in 2010. 
about and ask yourself where you might have been sucked in, happens to all of us and it substantiates a lot of what I have said here as it does exist. The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception are alive and well so try and figure out if or where you have been duped with formulas for profit that cross the line of ethics. 
think and the same thing is said here, those who control the code control the world. So again give this some thought as you live your life today and be aware of the “Algo Dupers” that live among us and they sometimes blend in too well with those who are trying to create good solutions for all of us. When big profits and billions of dollars are up for grabs with creating “desired” versus “accurate” results, well you kind of see what we have out there today. BD 
Granted there are some folks out there committing fraud but again each case is it’s own and there are some obvious ones that analytics can point out quickly and then there are those that due to patterns may give off some false positives. Insurers have been doing this for years. HHS Medicare Investigators are also using analytics to find potential fraud cases as well. 
to the financial ends of some areas of healthcare, getting to the root quickly to make a yes or no decision is important so patients don’t suffer and doctors don’t end up closing up shop or filing bankruptcy while the funds are cut off and decisions are made if they are practices that still take Medicaid. One doctor had to cut staff and wages while waiting for the decision and this too tends to discourage even more doctors from not taking Medicaid patients so a balance is needed so the doctors are not assumed guilty pending the investigation and funds or at least part of the money flows. 
members a little happier as this dispute affected their ability to use Walgreens that went into effect on January 2, 2012. There was even talk about Walgreens selling health insurance one day so that’s a wait and see and I wonder if so, which insurer will be first:) 
agreed on Thursday to renew its relationship with the prescription benefit manager 
will be advised when the full website is launched. The company has in the past received FDA approval for the Finesse Insulin Patch-Pen product when combined with insulin pumps in 2010. Earlier this year J and J subsidiary, Animas received some negative attention for selling some faulty insulin pumps with a warning letter from the FDA as some related events required patients to be hospitalized. The company began manufacturing and shipping from other manufacturing locations to correct the issues. 
a mid sized paper clip. Entirely mechanical with no batteries, no electronics, no separate infusion sets. Stays comfortably adhered to your body for up to 3 days through showering, exercising, sleeping, intimacy. To dose insulin during mealtimes, snack times, or for correction boluses, simply squeeze the 2 buttons together on the patch right through your clothing. Anytime. Anywhere. And unlike syringes or insulin pens, no prep is ever needed, it takes only a few seconds to dose, and no one will ever see. It is truly that simple! 
Calif., on July 13, said LifeScan spokesman Dave Detmers. 
revealed brass knuckles, knives and slingshot projectiles. He was arrested again last week in an early morning raid on his Encino home, where police discovered firearms, bb guns, slingshots and marbles similar to those used in the window-breakings. 
Roche (six:RO)(six:ROG)(otcqx:RHHBY) announced today that it has received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the Accu-Chek Combo system for insulin pump therapy. The Accu-Chek Combo system seamlessly combines a blood glucose meter with an insulin pump, which are able to exchange data in both directions via Bluetooth wireless technology. The meter not only enables the user to quickly test blood glucose levels: It allows for operating the insulin pump remotely and by means of an easy-to-handle bolus advisor it provides support in defining the right amount of insulin. With this the Accu-Chek Combo system not only supports a more targeted therapy management, but it also allows for a discreet insulin administration without the need to touch the pump. 
and it’s kind of sad that they went through battles to get the approval to start the stem cell trial for spinal cord damage. In that situation it was maybe a little too late as Geron the company who had been backing and pushing the program announced they were withdrawing from Stem Cell research and would work more with oncology research. 
can become many types of cells once injected into the body – restoring limb movement in mice with crushed spines, halting blindness in rats and, now, improving memory and brain function in mice bred to exhibit the kinds of impairment seen in Alzheimer's. 
and there are abuses. You can watch the video and see how the business operates with “for profit” companies. Many years ago in another life I worked with a guy who was in sales as was I for his day job and at night he was a courier for this business. He would pick up and deliver bones and tissues and it was almost to the point to where he could give up his “day job” of sales at any time. 
about. This is a business that saves lives for sure with cornea transplants for eyes and other body items, but like anything else in life sometimes it gets abused and you can hear the one story to where they didn’t sew the man’s foot back on. This business has been going on for years. Also there are now some recorded diseases that have been transferred via the processes and CDC makes the statement that they would like to know “where” the parts go. Sometimes it may be ground up parts or other times it’s an entire bone. 
they are presentable at a funeral. Sometimes patients are not even aware that they are receiving tissue or body parts from cadavers and that should be explained by all means. If we used bar codes, the tracking would be a lot easier for sure. Body parts coming to the US from Europe are not always traceable and there’s no questions asked. It’s amazing when you read through here though how everyone profits except the family of the person who has died and that seems a little unfair to a degree when you think that $80 to 200k can be made from one body in parts. 
should be in the category of non profit though all the way through as the non profits do the work with collecting tissue but then other companies involved pay the non profits to compensate them. Now that we have diseases such as HIV out there it’s getting to be important to know where the tissues and bones go. Blood and organs have bar codes but nothing for skin and other tissues. Occasionally tissues get recalled as well, again bar codes would help. 
That’s the under ground side of the business to where they operate under the table. Over 300 foreign tissue companies are registered with the US and the FDA has never closed one down and about 1/3 have never had an FDA inspection. The company profiled in the article is RTI and questions were asked about their procedures. Again when you look at the dollars and the fact that some people can’t afford to bury relatives due to economic conditions, should maybe a little bit be passed on to at least cover burial or cremation expenses one might ask? Big corporations even win at the end of life. BD 
healthcare benefits and used an algorithm in their business intelligence to justify doing so with contract stipulations. That took place a couple years ago. You know I can’t be too upset over the folks not wanting a 401k today based on current market conditions as it is kind of throwing them into the world of the unknown. In addition with 401ks for retirement you are pretty much in a “long” category and now for retirement benefits employees have to compete with the “shorters” out there. 
which has a genomic company who focused most of their translational work with physicians. Life Technologies is a large public traded company and probably one of their best known announcements in the area of sequencing came a while back with the Ion Torrent Machine which is a desktop sequencing machine. 
enter their own information as well. This will be interesting to follow this merger as there are a few competitors out there that also sequence so I seems one by one the partnerships and alliances for sequencing and interpretation seem to be lining up. 
acquire HIV while taking the drug be performed to determine if anyone could develop a resistance to it. Data also needs to be collected for pregnant women who are on the drug, for safety reasons to the unborn child. In addition Gilead, the company who makes the drug will be providing follow up tests every 3 months. A patient first has to be tested to make sure they are HIV negative to begin a prescription. There is a concern over whether healthy people should be taking the pill of course or if condom use would drop. 
I also have flipping book below that compares the current tests approved by the FDA and the LifeSaver format. 
those that are financially strapped. If you read the entire article though there are some interesting points made that lawyers follow the money trail for cases so if one were taking on a case, part of the research of course would to find out what’s available in the till. One hospital in the article set money aside for this but it was only 50k. Depending on the case, it might not even be enough to cover one lawsuit. 
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Math–This Could be a Subject for Michael Moore to Explore and Document In a Movie
Screenings Too–Killer Algorithms Part 12–Medical Billing Codes Style
Assessing Consumer Credit Scores–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 21 With Flawed Data
Duping” Society Combined With A World of Rogue Algorithms & Flawed Data Continues In Markets As Seen With Knight Capital This Week-Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 36
Study Fraud With EHR Technologies, Namely Medical Records/Billing Software Used by Hospitals– HHS And SEC Continue Getting Their Non-Algorithmic Fannies Kicked–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 46
SilverScript Senior Drug Program Sanctioned by Medicare Until the Payment And Billing Algorithms are Cleaned Up-Killer Algorithms Chapter 53
