Medical Quack

Quants of Optum Carve Out New Outsourced Billing Deal with Quest Labs, Will Also Serve to Enhance The Scoring & Data Selling Business Conducted by Both Companies via Powerful Subsidiaries

<p>If you don’t know what a Quant is, take time out and watch video #2 in the footer of this blog as they are not just limited to working at financial firms.  As a matter of fact, hedge funds and banks can’t hire enough of the and the same holds true for insurers and other healthcare entities.  These are the math wizards today that are working without a net of any “proof of concept” any more and are just tossing a lot of models out there to see if they stick.  I know that’s a crummy way of putting it, but that’s the reality of folks being soaked on models and numbers<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-QO1huLc4Ves/V92AEN8UY9I/AAAAAAABM0E/wF13WZgVGJU/s1600-h/image%25255B15%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="78" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CtZcwaQXId4/V92AE7cCDcI/AAAAAAABM0I/5rN3NG1tJRI/image_thumb%25255B9%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="244"></a> they don’t question, it’s the Dupes of Hazard society that exists everywhere today.  What the Quant do well, is to use math to create profits, no matter if it hurts individuals or not.  Look at what was recently done at Wells Fargo with the low level employees, as they didn’t just decide to sell fake accounts on their own, there was a pay for performance model created by quants with a number of carrots and probably some sticks attached.</p> <p>If you have not heard of the Optum 360 subsidiary, the link below will explain how it works and how the subsidiary solicits hospitals and other healthcare entities (now Quest Labs) to hand over their billing, also know as revenue cycling with the big hopes of saving money and collecting more money.  Employees are usually let go by the healthcare entity and rehired as an Optum 360 employee with maybe less pay and worse benefits.  I read some of the reviews from Dignity Hospital reviews on GlassDoor and they said the benefits were a lot worse once they came under the Optum umbrella.  You could almost say it’s an internal US H1B process as the pay and benefit results seem to follow the same pattern.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/04/mayo-clinic-is-latest-to-outsource.html">Mayo Clinic is the Latest to Outsource Revenue Cycling to Optum 360, A United Healthcare/Dignity Health Company Pursuing Hospital Contracts All Over the US For Profit…</a></h5> <p>The real deal here of course is the access to all the data as the data miners and sellers of the healthcare industry will take the data, score you and put the data into other “new” data bases and turn around and sell it.  This process is called repackaging and when this occurs, most of the time as consumers we have no idea where it goes or who originated the data.  As long as prescription data is not taken from a HIPAA covered entity such as a medical record, it’s out there for sale to who ever has the money.  Quest is also promoting their own “outsourcing” program with hospitals and <a href="www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/quest-diagnostics-completes-acquisition-of-clinical-laboratory-partners-outreach-laboratory-service-business-in-connecticut-300227605.html">just bought another hospital lab service,</a> so that makes about 5 or more they have bought.  20-30% of the services performed for hospitals with this service end up going to their own Quest diagnostic centers to be worked.  </p> <p>Subsidiaries of companies are something I have told all for years to pay attention to as that’s where all the data work is done and<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sUPaYPmhyqY/V92AFd84B4I/AAAAAAABM0M/LqEegYGImOk/s1600-h/image%25255B4%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="138" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DCiT1MZO3zc/V92AF8wyKTI/AAAAAAABM0Q/WM0FsT80Jtc/image_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="288"></a> computer code is written to create big profits with running proprietary code that nobody ever gets to see or audit for accuracy.  </p> <p>ScriptCheck, offered by ExamOne, a subsidiary of Quest Diagnostics is a big data mining firm, and so how many were not aware that Quest has been in the data mining and selling business for years?  Anyone buying a life insurance policy could very well be investigated and a full data pull created to get information for underwriting.  Sure we know some of this is necessary, but when do they cross the line?  Any more it’s all the time as the data gets repackaged and resold with data mining.  They take the list of meds and try to “guess” what medical conditions you have or “might” get.  That’s the scary part is the “might” or what is abused today and openly called predictive analytics.  In this <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/21/business/la-fi-lazarus-20131022">article written in 2013, David Lazarius</a> does a pretty job with explaining how this works.  <p><strong>There is an update though as ExamOne bought a bunch of Ingenix (now called Optum Insights) algorithms in 2014</strong>.  We maybe all know that the former Ingenix subsidiary of United Healthcare is where current acting CMS administrator Andy Slavitt called home for a number of years and was taken to court over cheating on out of nextwork payment for MDs by using formulas beyond comprehension of most to inflate United Healthcare profits. <strong> I call it “Code Hosing”</strong> when I see this occur as you and I as a consumer have no access to either the math or the models used to create these profit centers and it ends up being a bunch of <a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-rise-of-quants-again-this-time-in.html">quantitated madness due to the fact that people are afraid to contest any form of math,</a> good math or bad math. <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141027182707-39299902-examone-acquires-assets-from-optuminsight?forceNoSplash=true">Heres a few clips that tell you all about Quest Diagnostics ExamOne service</a> and their purchase of the Ingenix MedPoint (OptumInsights) Algorithms in 2014 and what ScriptCheck is all about.    <p><em>“LENEXA, KS, October 27, 2014 / -- ExamOne, a Quest Diagnostics company and leader in helping insurers meet their underwriting needs, is pleased to announce the acquisition of certain proprietary assets from OptumInsight that support the ability to provide rapid responses to data inquiries for use in life and health risk assessments. The acquired assets will streamline and improve the ScriptCheck® service offered through ExamOne.”</em> <p><em>Along with ExamOne’s expansive suite of insurance services (also known as Policy Express) the acquired technology is designed to accelerate the underwriting process, improve risk assessment, assess the accuracy of health statements and discover undisclosed doctors<img align="right" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_v3zjJigoAPE/SkL9GOgy_rI/AAAAAAAATec/4yxb2jf7CV8/image_thumb%5B5%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px"> or medical conditions for underwriters.</em> <p><em><strong>About ExamOne</strong><br>ExamOne has provided a portfolio of services to the insurance industry since 1972. It has grown significantly through continuous innovation that meets the evolving needs of life, health and disability insurance providers and their customers. Laboratory testing was part of the company’s original services, which over time have expanded to include paramedical examinations, fraud detection, electronic data collection, and gathering attending physician statements and motor vehicle records. ExamOne also has expanded into helping individuals learn about their own health through its Inside Look™ product.</em></p> <p>Part of the real scary part about this agreement is that now Optum also will be able to get any biometric screenings provided by Quest as well.  We have all seen the nighmare Orwelian companies like Red Brick (which was started by a one time United Healthcare young exec) that are into<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-DRG5tPihlZE/V92AGSOr7MI/AAAAAAABM0U/O5NN6zkMnyk/s1600-h/EQUIPP%25255B5%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="EQUIPP" border="0" height="457" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rKZvRY4yzrk/V92AG2s461I/AAAAAAABM0Y/Rc7GljKudEM/EQUIPP_thumb%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="EQUIPP" width="449"></a> monitoring every move we make and this looks like an open loop hole here for United Heatlhcare/Optum to get that data, what else can you say?  There’s nobody in their right mind that wants their insurance company to have all types of data and information that the insurer could easily miscontrue and take out of context to avoid paying a claim!  That’s what this does.  Actually it’s not just Quest and United Healthcare/Optum deal alone, we have a huge problem of “Excess Scoring” in the US taking place with consumer using flawed data, queries and proprietary code to where we do not have the ability to even correct it.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/09/excess-scoring-of-us-consumers-us.html">Excess Scoring of US Consumers, US Citizens-Scored into Oblivion By Proprietary Algorithms and Formulas, Never Duplicated or Tested for Accuracy-Profits of Big Business And A White House Executive Command To Continue the Abuse..</a></h5> <p>If you get a chance to talk candidly to pharmacists today, they’ll tell you all about what’s going on and how you are “scored” with every prescription you fill too.  There’s this EQUIPP program out there that tells them what to do and how to dig in and find outliers, some of which are diabetics who are not on statins.  The pharmacists who are forced to work this EQUIPP program model have to find their “outliers” or they could end up like the employees at Wells Fargo and be be out of a job if they don’t play the game.  In the drug industry, they couldn’t get doctors to push statins and other monitoring flawed data programs, so now the boom is lowered on your retail pharmacists who need their jobs.  Click on the image at the right and see what I’m talking about.  <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/06/medication-adherence-predictions-enter.html">Medication Adherence Predictions Enter the World of Quantitated Justifications For Things That Are Just Not True, Members of the Proprietary “Code Hosing” Clubs Out There Destroying Your Privacy</a></h5> <p>So my guess here is that with United Healthcare/Optum having this new additional data of labs to query into the prescriptions, your lab tech could very well be the next person out there suggesting not only monitoring but also in a round about way, pushing more drugs.  <p><strong>This really even gets more interesting with the Quants of Optum and their models for profit as United Healthcare has a contract with LabCorp as their exclusive Lab and has had that contract since 2007.</strong>  Optum and United Healthcare already get all that lab<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-k-dnOpmw8Ow/V92AHa6pxII/AAAAAAABM0c/SxBgk_dHybQ/s1600-h/image%25255B19%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="101" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-W_L3qRa38CQ/V92AH4GFwtI/AAAAAAABM0g/qfsi9ppy29s/image_thumb%25255B11%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="187"></a> information from LabCorp and the contract continues until 2018, so that’s what makes this Quest deal interesting and data rich with data selling.  If patients all over the country are already being directed to LabCorp facilities, how would Optum get a chunk of this money?  I suppose the answer is what just happened with the Optum 360 subsidiary now getting do most all of the billing for Quest Diagnositcs, right?  <p><strong>Talk about quants working over time working both models of each lab to increase revenue, right?</strong>  Again watch video #2 in the footer and learn what a quant does as we have that same mentality running CMS with Andy Slavitt being both a former McKinsey consultant and a Goldman banker running everything.  All he is concerned about is numbers as he’s just an Algo Man who cares little about anything else.  Follow him on Twitter and it’s not hard to see at all. <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-rise-of-quants-again-this-time-in.html">The Rise of the Quants, Again! This Time In US Healthcare- Taming the MACRA Beast of Quantitated Madness For A Lot of Things That Are Probably Just Not True</a></h5> <p>So what happens when you get a lab test done?  Depending on the result of course, you might get a prescription for a drug, we all know that by now (grin), so look at how this data mining is working today.  With Optum having all the lab information will this have a tendency to push more drugs, and the drugs that are covered by pharmacy benefit managers that make the most profit for them?  It is not far fetched in my book <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-XgfibL-ArlQ/V92AIYYGhaI/AAAAAAABM0k/HXiYtXMIqGc/s1600-h/image%25255B9%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="194" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-suvBkbofYL0/V92AI4FEAxI/AAAAAAABM0o/4R765Soth94/image_thumb%25255B5%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="265"></a>at all as I used to work with data, wrote software and it’s how the mentality works.  If you haven’t noticed by the way, the OptumRX is the largest revenue stream that United Healthcare has now, larger than each of their insurance groups when compared.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2016/04/united-healthcare-reports-1st-quarter.html">United Healthcare Reports 1st Quarter-OptumRX (Pharmacy Benefit Manager) Produces More Revenue Than Its Health Insurance Groups</a></h5> <p>So this is adding yet another element of behaviorial scoring and data mining for profit if you will and we’re not getting any breaks on cost.  As a matter of fact, this is a good link to look at that explains the coupons and discount cards at the pharmacy, as they tell you how it works. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-truth-about-pharmacy-benefit.html">The Truth About Pharmacy Benefit Managers and Prescription Discount Cards–Created With Automated Algorithmic Processes That Enable Huge Profits-Consumers at Risk!</a></h5> <p>Again, look at the subsidiaries of these big corporations and what are doing with data for your answers as it’s all there as the<strong> quants in healthcare keep modeling away to attain the best models for profit,</strong> not necessarily for better care, Moneyball as Optum calls it, which really only works well for baseball where everyone knows the rules, but with healthcare the rules change every day.  BD <p> <hr> UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s Optum health-services arm has struck a deal to oversee billing processes for lab giant Quest Diagnostics Inc., substantially expanding its growing business of handling such transactions for health-care companies. Under the 10-year pact, Optum will take over a number of key revenue-related services for Quest, including billing health insurers and consumers, and collecting and processing payments from both. About 2.400 employees who did such work for Quest will become Optum employees, but they will generally remain physically in their current locations.</p> <p><a title="http://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealths-optum-unit-to-oversee-quest-diagnostics-billing-processes-1473760800" href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealths-optum-unit-to-oversee-quest-diagnostics-billing-processes-1473760800">http://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealths-optum-unit-to-oversee-quest-diagnostics-billing-processes-1473760800</a></p>

Quants of Optum Carve Out New Outsourced Billing Deal with Quest Labs, Will Also Serve to Enhance The Scoring & Data Selling Business Conducted by Both Companies via Powerful Subsidiaries

If you don’t know what a Quant is, take time out and watch video #2 in the footer of this blog as they are not just limited to working at financial firms. As a matter of fact, hedge funds and banks can’t hire enough of the and the same holds true for insurers and other healthcare entities. These a…

17Sep2016

“Sully”, The Government’s Flawed Algorithms and Simulations Were Wrong, What Doctors Can Learn From Pilots…

<p>I had to include the bit about the comparison here about doctors and pilots as this correlation over the years has been used so many times and some very strange writings as doctor are not pilots, but some folks seem to think the two are more similar than they really are.  What is similar is how they are “scored” by algorithms though, which are proprietary for the most part and nobody gets to see the magic black box formulas.  Aviation though does have one advantage though as they do have a real “black box” that does record data and the conversations and actions of pilots.  They try to do something like this in healthcare, but it doesn’t work as pilots are dealing with an object, which is a jet, but doctors are dealing with humans, a person, not a jet.</p> <p>As a matter of fact the only real correlation between doctors and pilots was revealed a few years ago where a <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yUVXdZ6cAzo/V9WFyFxYJoI/AAAAAAABMzk/3tCAymVzC10/s1600-h/Sully%25255B3%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="Sully" border="0" height="309" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uDmgPHpT3-Y/V9WFy30eB3I/AAAAAAABMzo/o3sQqr9C6VQ/Sully_thumb%25255B1%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="Sully" width="205"></a>former United Airlines pilot duped even the AMA on the fact that he was a cardiologist and even had to <a href="http://retractionwatch.com/2011/04/13/remember-william-hamman-the-pilot-who-claimed-to-be-a-cardiologist-a-retraction-appears/">retract several papers he had written.</a>  William Hamman was a pilot for United Airlines who had started in med school years ago but never finished.  After he was exposed, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/fake-cardiologist-william-hamman-duped-real-doctors/story?id=12395288">his pilot job at United</a> soon disappeared.  So in my opinion only, this is really the correlation between doctors and pilots I ever found (grin).</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/02/what-can-healthcare-learn-from-aviation.html">What Can Healthcare Learn From Aviation? Watch Your Models As The Virtual World Can Be Far Different From the Real World When It Comes to Designing And Implementing Software & Hardware</a></h5> <p>I went to see the move “Sully” yesterday and that is the screaming value that I walked away with, <strong>don’t let flawed data and bad algorithms (flawed) produce inaccurate information that makes you begin to question who you are</strong> and use data to turn an individual who is hero into a zero.  The NTSB with their algorithms had it all wrong.  If you have read my blog for any amount of time, I preach this all the time on how folks get too wrapped up in stats and numbers and forget the “human” element and that’s what this move was all about.  Sure algorithms can be good as well and its more in the fact about how we use them for knowledge, and not about scoring people into data oblivion with flawed data and assumptions from Quants and Data Scientists who “think” they have the ultimate answers, especially in the area of predictive analytics.  </p> <p>Due to a lot of the over hype of the power of algorithms and how they are marketed, we have a real problem today in the fact that people can’t seem to tell the difference anymore on what’s a “real world” value and what’s a “virtual world” value.  I wrote about that initially in 2013 and it seems to be getting worse all the time, and so far I have not read any news stories of folks looking for Pokemon on a commercial airliner yet, but I have this feeling that the “dupes” who confuse both values will show up there soon as they have appeared everywhere else such as hospitals and police departments (grin). If you follow me on Twitter at all, I have a special name for this scenario, “The Dupes of Hazard Society”.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/06/virtual-world-values-and-real-world-we.html">Virtual World Values and The Real World, We Have A Big Problem: People Can’t Tell the Difference Anymore as Perceptual Madness Grows to Further Accelerate Inequality…</a></h5> <p>In the course of my life I have happened to run across and meet a couple other pilots who were in these types of life and death situations and there’s not a lot of time and in both of those instances, it too was the human element that saved the day, just like Sully did.  As a matter of fact, there is an airmanship award given every year by the Fraternal Order of Daedalians for the act of heroism by a commercial airline pilot. After seeing the movie and how the NTSB was stuck on their algorithms to turn the tide into discounting Sully, I feel he was left out of the award given in 2009.  <a href="http://www.daedalians.org/awards/george.htm">You can read about the award here</a> and see how no award was given in 2009.  Here’s a clip from the page that tells what the award is.  There are a number of awards and it’s mostly for the military but this is one award given to commercial airline crews.  If you look and see, in 2009, there’s no award for Sully on the Hudson river.  In 1998 you can see the award for <a href="http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/bruce-harris/Profile?oid=3704124">Bruce Harris from Delta,</a> who also “sucked in birds” and was able to save the day and all the passengers.  </p> <p><em><strong>“Lieutenant General Harold L. George Civilian Airmanship Award: A Daedalian trophy and award presented annually to the pilot, copilot and/or crew of a United States certified commercial airline selected by a Federal Aviation committee to have demonstrated ability, judgment and/or heroism above and beyond normal operational requirements. (First awarded in 1956.)”</strong></em></p> <p>Back on course, I couldn’t help  but notice how the movie created a “personal struggle” with Sully in the fact that after a while, you do have a tendency to doubt yourself and we all do it, so there’s nothing new about that, but when you have forces such at the NTSB pushing the envelope with flawed data and simulations, anyone would start to wonder if there was anything that could have been done differently.  The item they forgot which was brought out in the movie is the fact that this as a life or death panic situation and the flipping algorithms after the fact to try to show that the judgement on the part of Sully was purely wrong.  Sure continue the investigation to get to the truth, but to try and take away the heroism shown with this type of decision that had to be made with very little notice and the lives of 155 passengers, was obscene.  <strong>It’s like being in the “panic room” with a lot of company, the passengers.</strong>  </p> <p>Perceptions are a big part of our world and I liked the fact that the movie did address what I call Perception-Deception with the NTSB and their attitudes with their simulation algorithms.  I see this all the time where the Dupes of Hazard will fight with some math formulas and algorithms to death to defend their numbers which are usually based in an idea or thought that has no proof of concept.  Ok so now I get the chance to be tacky and take a dig as I see this every day with Andy Slavitt who runs Medicare in this country.  Everything he authors, talks about, etc. is all about numbers and he never goes to human side and we end up with a bunch of Quant models running healthcare with flawed data and methodologies.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/06/operation-perception-deception-into.html">Operation “perception-Deception” Into Full Swing in the US, With Killer Algorithms, Algo Fairies, Algo Duping, The Grays, and Of Course, Flags As Consumers Confuse Virtual World Values With the Real World…</a></h5> <p><strong>Indeed in the movie, Sully too had a bunch of “quantiated madness” and faulty simulations to deal with as well.</strong>  Doctors every day are getting ripped with flawed data and algorithms and scored into oblivion with things that are just not true as well.  You can read more about this at the link below at the quantitated madness dished out to their occupations by folks who bow to the all mighty algorithms without looking at the human side of care.</p> <h5><strong><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-rise-of-quants-again-this-time-in.html">The Rise of the Quants, Again! This Time In US Healthcare- Taming the MACRA Beast of Quantitated Madness For A Lot of Things That Are Probably Just Not True</a></strong></h5> <p>So, sure Sully gets offered mental health counseling after the incident, and not being there, we have no <img align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-6HDDm04lOwA/Ts0zq-EuFHI/AAAAAAAA4d8/nMT-KL0JEDY/image_thumb%25255B12%25255D.png?imgmax=172" style="float: right; display: inline">clue on what it could have entailed but again one could ask would such behavioral analytics serve a purpose to make one doubt themselves even further?  It could if the therapie were tweaked the wrong way.</p> <p><strong>Turns out I’m not the only one who writes about this topic</strong>.  I’ve writing about what I call <strong><a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/">“The Attack of the Killer Algorithms”</a></strong> for a number of years.  I saw it come to surface with the Occupy Movement as that was a cause without a cause you could say as the perception of the general public seemed to view it.  Deep down it was not without a cause, but they couldn’t find the focus and that’s because it was hidden in proprietary algorithms they couldn’t see, talk or relate too, but they knew something was wrong and that was sufficient to make a statement.  There’s a new book out by <a href="https://mathbabe.org/">Cathy O’Neil, a former Wall Street Quant</a> during the financial crisis that’s worth a read.  I have to be honest and say I have not read the full book yet, although I feel like I almost have as I have read her blog for years on the same topic, the dark side of big data that she covers.  I try to group together other like minds on the Killer Algorithms page of videos and links to help folks understand what’s going on out there.  For a preview of such, just scroll on down to the footer here and watch the 4 videos.  </p> <p><strong>“Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy”</strong> is the name of the new book and you can <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Math-Destruction-Increases-Inequality/dp/0553418815/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8">link here to Amazon</a> to find out more about it.  The book has been longer over due and she tells you how this insideous insidious “scoring” systems of algorithms works.  There’s some good examples on how teachers are “scored” and what happens to them when subjected to flawed data and flawed methodologies of “scoring”. <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1T-X0vt3giE/V9WFzQijODI/AAAAAAABMzs/yZI7oAgqSOg/s1600-h/image%25255B4%25255D.png"><img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="193" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KJ672vOBiEw/V9WFz-Y0qlI/AAAAAAABMzw/Tpnl68wFr3o/image_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="133"></a> She’s a lot smarter than me and I used to develop software so I know as well as anyone does who writes or has written code on how dishonestly for profit can live in proprietary computer code.  </p> <p><strong>Cathy takes you to the next level up which are the mathematical models that are created before the computer code is created to automate “scoring” processes.</strong>  A model is written first and then comes the code that you can’t see, hear or touch.  It’s just there, gathering all kinds of data about you from God knows where and “scoring” you into some value system.  In her words, Cathy states we are all members of a cult without knowing we’re in one and that’s pretty much how it is.  To understand how this works, watch video #2 in the footer as the Quant documentary does a pretty good job for the layman to understand the basis of how these complicated formulas work.  <strong>In the words of Bill Gates “software is just a bunch of algorithms working together”.</strong>  </p> <p>As people we can’t be bias or are not supposed to to be, <strong>but what happens when the algorithms (that are created by humans) are bias?</strong>  Nobody’s doing anything about the <strong>“Code Hosing”</strong> that is taking place out there.  Again if you follow me on Twitter, I call <strong>it Code Hosing as that’s what it is, people being hosed with computer code they know nothing about other than how they are marketed to “trust it”.</strong>  People like Cathy have been urging the release of some of this proprietary “scoring” algorithms and code so we can see what makes it work, as how else can you validate models and code?  Want to see how you get scored every time you fill a prescription, something that all of us do?  Read the link below and see how these bias algorithms use all kinds of non scientific metrics to “score” you.  Pharmacy benefit managers get away with this garbage and soon the score may block you from access to some expensive drugs too.  This too is secret and you have no access to the score of methodology used to give you a prediction grade.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/06/medication-adherence-predictions-enter.html">Medication Adherence Predictions Enter the World of Quantitated Justifications For Things That Are Just Not True, Members of the Proprietary “Code Hosing” Clubs Out There Destroying Your Privacy</a></h5> <p>If you watch the Quant documentary in the footer, <strong>Mike Osinski who wrote the software for the mortgage scams</strong> that took place and crashed the economy, he’s has some real words of wisdom for his part.  He wrote the software the banks used and states is was never meant to be used the way it was to refinance loans.  His best quote from the video is <strong>“with software you can do something about anything, create all kinds of virtual worlds to function in, but what really matters is what happens in the real world”.</strong>  That’s a fact as again as I mentioned above people get involved in chasing all types of virtual values and forget about the “real” world and God knows he saw it first hand.  I like the part where he coudn’t even sleep at night for all the bankers and financial folks wanting more code and as he said “you have to right, you can’t be wrong”.  What those words really meant though during that time was<strong> “you have to be right and shove the money to the direction of the banks”.  </strong></p> <p><strong>Virtual worlds impact and affect all of us</strong>.  I like to use the world of <strong>Volkswagon who cheated with their computer code</strong> as a damning example as everyone knows about it by now that they cheated with their proprietary computer code.  Stop and think about this as the company created a perfect little “virtual” world of cars that did not pollute; however, in the real world they did pollute, so be a <a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-being-data-skeptic-modelers-have.html">skeptic when you need to be.</a>  Sometimes the only way get “get on” to the cheaters is when we notice the output of the algorithms not putting out results that can be trusted.  The link below is also another of Cathy’s publications that is worth a read as well from a few years ago. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-being-data-skeptic-modelers-have.html">“On Being a Data skeptic- Modelers Have A Bigger Responsibility Now Than Ever Before”–A Must Read Essay, Start “Sniffing the Data”…</a></h5> <p>Charlie Siefe, NYU, in video #1 in the footer also tells you about the Code Hosing taking place today and how we all take in numbers that are tossed at us with nobody questioning what is written, context is everything indeed.   It’s interesting as his talk is a Google’s NY headquarters telling their employees how they get duped.  Big people with money and somewhat good intentions get duped.<strong>  We all remember how Bloomberg and Frieden who now runs CDS were duped on Big Gulp.  I</strong>t was just another model created that was supposed to change behavior on what size of soft drinks people could buy and it failed miserably.  I’m sure both of them would maybe like to erase this chapter in their lives of the <strong>Big Gulp Dupe</strong>, as it was so much in the news as well as it’s failure.  They sucked in flawed data and a big failed model.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/how-many-more-bloomberg-big-gulp-failed.html">How Many More “Bloomberg Big Gulp” Failed “Proof of Concept” Models Can We Sustain Before Everyone Splits a Gasket?</a></h5> <p><strong>Bottom line is that all of us as citizens in the US are “scored” into oblivion</strong> and why even get out of bed every day (satire) as <strong>we have these huge, heavy ball and chains of what are called “risk assessments” that are tied to our ankles</strong>.  We get tired of walking around with that excess weight, which is exactly what it is.  Shoot we are so risk assessed that one wonders so any of us have the right to walk around this earth as we are a risk to everything!  Sure there is legit scoring and qualifications that need to exist and those models are not going anywhere soon but we’ve taken “scoring” to a new limit to where nobody has much worth except the algorithms and those who worship those virtual values!  This not how the world is supposed to work.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.ca/2015/09/excess-scoring-of-us-consumers-us.html">Excess Scoring of US Consumers, US Citizens-Scored into Oblivion By Proprietary Algorithms and Formulas, Never Duplicated or Tested for Accuracy-Profits of Big Business And A White House Executive Command To Continue the Abuse</a></h5> <p>Anway, back on course here with <strong>Sully, my big take from this movie is the fact that it did put “scoring”, flawed data, and bad models flat in your face</strong> on how we are looking at value today and the NTS<strong>B was worshipping the Holy ground of some flipping algorithms </strong>and tried to denounce a real hero named Sully.  </p> <p>All algorithms are not bad and they do help us with knowledge and better managment and skills, <strong>but somewhere along the line we got off course and are somehow bowing down to the all mighty algorithms and functioning in virtual worlds instead of the real world</strong>.  Give that some thought next time before you go hook line and sinker into a set of numbers, statistics or scores that are presented to you, before you give the numbers more credit than deserved. BD</p> <p>Just for good measure, here’s a few related posts from the archives here…</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/01/movie-her-good-example-on-how-folks.html">Movie “HER”– Good Example On How Folks Can’t Separate And/Or Unite The Virtual With The Real World, Billionaires Are Made Out of Those Who Know How to Keep These Areas “Gray” With Creating and Maintaining The Addictive Code That Does It…</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/virtual-unreality-maybe-good-read-after.html">“Virtual Unreality” - Maybe A Good Read After the Fake Facebook “Science” Report To Help You Figure Out What’s A Virtual Value and What’s A Real Value Out There</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2016/01/silicon-valley-is-at-it-again-confusing.html">Silicon Valley Is At It Again Confusing the Public With Calling Risk Assessments a Form of A Diagnosis Tool…</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/10/citizen-score-in-china-huge-warning-for.html">“Citizen Score” in China, A Huge Warning For America About the Loss of Privacy, Lifestyle and Personal Worth As Noted by the ACLU With This Orwellian Nightmare</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/05/the-great-math-mysterysoftware.html">“The Great Math Mystery”–Software Engineering-Looking for Where It Does and Doesn’t Work-The Physics Connection…</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/when-models-are-too-complex-with-too.html">When The Models Are Too Complex With Too Many Bits of Data-Sometimes Quants, Data Scientists Just Guess and Assign a Number Value And “That’s Not Science At All “</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/03/obamacare-one-big-attack-of-killer.html">Obamacare - One Big “Attack of the Killer Algorithms” No Matter Which Direction You Turn, Compounded With a Lot of Government and Consumer “Algo Duping”….</a></h5>

“Sully”, The Government’s Flawed Algorithms and Simulations Were Wrong, What Doctors Can Learn From Pilots…

I had to include the bit about the comparison here about doctors and pilots as this correlation over the years has been used so many times and some very strange writings as doctor are not pilots, but some folks seem to think the two are more similar than they really are. What is similar is how they…