Not To Be Left Out of the $180 Billion Dollar A Year Personal Data Selling Business, Twitter Jumps In to Sell More Tweets

<p>I don’t worry about Twitter as much as I do the other social networks as you have to say it in 140 characters and include a link if you want and it’s more my news feed than a social network, but it does do both.  I have made some great connections on Twitter as well, as most of the time, if they haven’t been replaced by a bot, there’s a human on the other side and you should be darn sure you have something of interest to share.  Anyway that’s my take on Twitter as it’s the only social network that gives me time, while the rest of them “take” my time.</p> <p>Now back on target here the folks mostly afflicted with “Stat Rat Fever” think there’s some huge virtual value in some of the chatter that goes on with Twitter and I guess the fools are going to pay money to have new stats and analytics that may or may not have value in the real world.  We all know everyone thinks every stick of data in the virtual worlds has value so we have a lot of dupers mixed in.  Sure I can see how academia and police departments can come up with some simple analytics with hints as to where to put more police as one example and what’s trending to see what people are talking about and what they care about as we have that now, just not in extreme “Stat Rat Fever” formats.  <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="210" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-8oiHk-qkmOo/VQpOz9NzRQI/AAAAAAABMII/kB2_8jvaaqE/image%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="image" width="295" /></p> <p>You do have to watch health insurers and the context they use with data that they sell and collect at they are notorious for putting the wrong spin on some of it if those “risk fiddling” algo influencers make money.  It’s the same old thing, toss numbers at consumers and you’ll get a sale, especially today as people are so confused on what’s a virtual world value and what’s a real world value.  Both have their place but too many forger that the “real world” should rise about any virtual values you read about.  I can’t fry a Facebook “like” in a skillet and eat it for breakfast to be totally blunt on that topic”, but look at all the nonsense we read about such.  </p> <p>Remember the Tweet that killed a stock…well more of that on the way perhaps too as bots only add the focus and impact as programmed by humans when you look at Twitter data.  In the meantime, I think Twitter really wants to figure out how to make some money off their data, just like everyone else is doing and the credit card companies are the king of it.  Don’t think so?  Read the link below and see how you will be “had” one more way for the credit cards to collect and sell more data about you.  Sad thing is that this hurt journalism and the quality we get reported as they move over to that awful bot run Facebook type of a model. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/major-us-newspapers-sign-up-and-invest.html">Major US Newspapers Sign Up and Invest With New Start Up That Will Charge You To Read The News–20 Cents Per Article, Probably Written by a Bot and Goes On You Credit Card–And Bolsters the $180 Million Dollar Year Personal Data Selling Business</a></h5> <p>As was mentioned, data selling is not a huge part of how Twitter makes money so are they trying to increase that?  We need to license and index all data sellers as this leads to more breaches, repackaging and selling your data and no way for consumers to go fix the flawed stuff that gets out there about us.  Help out with the campaign if you would.  I started it 3 years ago and a lot of deaf Congressional ears, however the FTC is listening, while the White House is still living too virtual and giving us more “selfies” to view.  Again some of what Twitter data miners uncover could be interesting but darn it’s not a Fort Knox of data, so don’t be a duper.    </p> <h5><strong><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/ftc-says-white-house-privacy-bill-of.html">FTC Says the White House Privacy Bill of Rights Pretty Much Sucks-White House Can’t Model For One, And Leaves Data Selling Companies In Complete Control-Time to Index and License…</a></strong></h5> <p>Above all with all the personal data selling I do keep one thought up front with the value of this data “People just still like to lie their ass off”…so there:)  BD</p> <p> <hr />In Twitter data strategy chief Chris Moody’s vision of the future, companies surprising their customers like this could become an everyday occurrence – made possible because <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/twitter">Twitter</a> is listening.</p> <p>Computer systems are already aggregating trillions of tweets from the microblogging site, sorting and sifting through countless conversations, following the banter and blustering, ideas and opinions of its 288 million users in search of commercial opportunities.</p> <p>It is not only commercial interests that are mining the data. Academics are using it to gauge the mood in a football crowd, and trying to shed light on whether Premier League players such as Manchester United’s Radamel Falcao are overpaid – with a team of researchers from Reading, Dundee and Cambridge universities testing whether top-flight footballers’ salaries are related purely to performance on the pitch or can be boosted by popularity on social media.</p> <p>Selling data is as yet a small part of Twitter’s overall income – $70m out of a total of $1.3bn last year, with the lion’s share of cash coming from advertising, but the social network has big plans to increase that. Its acquisition of Chris Moody’s analytics company Gnip for $130m last April is a sign of that intent.</p> <p>Google and Facebook have built their businesses around sharing data, but their control of our private and public information has become a source of huge controversy.</p> <p>An insurance company that knows your home cover is about to expire might then use Twitter to send a direct advertisement, for example. It also resells data for other social networks, including photo-sharing site Tumblr and local directory Foursquare.</p> <p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/18/twitter-puts-trillions-tweets-for-sale-data-miners">http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/18/twitter-puts-trillions-tweets-for-sale-data-miners</a></p>

Not To Be Left Out of the $180 Billion Dollar A Year Personal Data Selling Business, Twitter Jumps In to Sell More Tweets

I don’t worry about Twitter as much as I do the other social networks as you have to say it in 140 characters and include a link if you want...

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Premera Blue Cross Hacked (Not Related to Anthem Hack) 11 Million Affected Along With Marketing Affiliations And Private Insurance Exchange…

<p>This breach/attack affects Premera Blue Cross, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, Vivacity and Connexion Insurance Solutions.  Connexion is interesting as it’s also a private insurance exchange that sells health insurance. <strong> Connexion wants<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="100" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-pN2HhZ7xR4A/VQkZZne3COI/AAAAAAABMHw/6xMmPLMfFWk/image%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="image" width="256" /> developers to write apps for them too and even has tabs on the site where you can “upload apps” and I would say for now they might have those shut down</strong>.  Connexion also has a referral fee to pay out to businesses for referrals to them.  So hey just the kind of companies you want to spend your time writing apps for right?  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/insurance-carriers-and-brokers-are-big.html">Insurance Carriers and Brokers Are Big Data Players With Data Mining, Selling and Analytics–Need to License All Data Sellers So We Know Who The Big Profiteers Are..</a></h5> <p>As I mentioned before we don’t know exactly what these hackers have in mind but there’s been a bit of ruckus with the Dark Web sites that sell stolen data and I keep telling folks that eventually their data will be repackaged and sold as legit.  It’s not very hard for hackers with some basic SQL skills to do that and with a few queries there would be no need to mention anything about Blue Cross as the data can be sold to many other entities.  Keep an eye open on sites like this as this is where repackaged data will show up (link below) at sites that do data exchanges for money.  Everyone seems to be ignoring this fact and it’s one to not be passed over as it’s not that hard for the crooks to go this route.  It’s just like counterfeit drugs that get into the system, except data is easier to disguise as legit, again with some skilled hackers out there.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-data-exchange-buy-and-sell-data-on.html">“The Data Exchange” Buy and Sell Data on Self Service Website, One More Reason to Index and License Data Sellers-This Appears to be Open Game for Selling Repackaged Personal Data-No Privacy At All</a></h5> <p>It sounds like this time they got into claims and there’s a wealth of information contained there for sure.  Again we don’t know what the hackers have in mind to monetize the the stolen data but that’s what they are in it for.  You know it’s just too darn bad that insurers spend millions on collecting data for sale that has nothing to do with giving medical care and who knows if any of that, like credit card transaction data, consumer scoring numbers, etc. was taken.  If insurers would just spend a bit more on security and cut back on the data selling, maybe things could improve.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/health-insurance-business-is-driving.html">Health Insurance Business Is Driving Itself Off a Cliff & Doesn’t Know When to Stop With Collecting, Analyzing and Processing Non Relevant Data With Little Or No Impact On Giving Good Care..</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/health-insurance-companies-providing.html">Health Insurance Companies Providing Charge Cards And/Or Coupons For Healthy Foods–More Data To Collect About You And Potentially Repackage and Sell For A Profit…</a></h5> <p>I’ll repeat this again and ask for some contributions as we need to index and license All data sellers..who are they?  Will your data show up for sale on legit data exchange selling sites?  It certainly could.  Again the hackers could lie low and wait a few months before their reformatted and repackaged data shows up.  It’s already being done and we can’t identify much of it as we don’t license any of these people who strip consumer dignity and sell our personal data.  </p> <p>Here’s the campaign and there’s a couple interesting updates too on credit cards and how you might have to pay for some news one day too.  BD</p> <h5><a href="http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776">Campaign to Create Transparency with Consumer Data Selling-Index and License all Data Sellers</a></h5> <p> <hr />BOSTON — Health insurer Premera Blue Cross said on Tuesday it was a victim of a cyberattack that may have exposed medical data and financial information of 11 million customers in the latest serious breach disclosed by a health-care company.</p> <p>It said the attackers may have gained access to claims data, including clinical information, along with banking account numbers, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/s/social_security_us/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier">Social Security</a>numbers, birth dates and other data in an attack that began in May 2014.</p> <p>It is the largest breach reported to date involving patient medical information, according to Dave Kennedy, an expert in health care security who is chief executive of TrustedSEC.</p> <p>The breach was uncovered on Jan. 29, the day that insurer Anthem disclosed a cyberattack involving records of some 79 million members in Blue Cross Blue Shield plans across the country.</p> <p>A Premera spokesman, Eric Earling, said the two attacks were unrelated and that his company independently identified its breach.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/business/premera-blue-cross-says-data-breach-exposed-medical-data.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/18/business/premera-blue-cross-says-data-breach-exposed-medical-data.html?smid=tw-nytimeshealth&seid=auto&_r=0</a></p>

Premera Blue Cross Hacked (Not Related to Anthem Hack) 11 Million Affected Along With Marketing Affiliations And Private Insurance Exchange…

This breach/attack affects Premera Blue Cross, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, Vivacity and Connexion Insurance Solutions.  Connex...

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FDA Warns “Don’t Get Your Dog Stoned” With the Uptick of Pet Hemp Products and Clean Up Your Advertising Warning To Two Companies Selling the Products…

<p>This is not unexpected and there are two companies now that seem to be jumping the gun a little bit on what cannabis can do for your dog.  Of course, always check with the Vet and see what they say on this topic.  From reading this article, the claims do seem to be a little<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="162" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-eEvPfiMmqvw/VQezokscN6I/AAAAAAABMHc/f1uNBv6Zmms/image%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; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="187" /> exaggerated and I’m sure somewhere along the line under the supervision of a Vet that Cannabis will have some merit but things are very new right now and let’s wait and see how the clinical and medical data shuffles in before you get Fido stones.  Actually I think the part of cannabis that gives the high has been removed from the product from what the video says but you never know about what you read and see anymore either.  </p> <p>Is this beagle in the video stoned?  Ok a little satire here with this story but you know how pictures can lead to some strange perceptions out there today.  </p> <p>Don’t rely on marketing is the real message here from the FDA and wait until we get more information.  We’ll maybe see more use in the future.  FDA said the two companies have to change their marketing.  </p> <p><iframe height="285" src="http://www.kvi.com/home/featured/296218731.html?embed" frameborder="0" width="460" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" seamless="seamless"></iframe></p> <hr />SULTAN, Wash. -- Hemp products for pets are starting to hit the market for the first time since Washington voters legalized marijuana for recreational use. <p>Two Puget Sound area companies are being warned by the federal government to back off their medical claims.</p> <p>More and more companies are using marijuana or hemp and claim the resulting products for pets can give extraordinary medical and health benefits.</p> <p>According to the Food and Drug Administration, Canna-Pet, LLC, uses words like anti-cancer, anti-tumor, and much more. Canna Companion out of Snohomish County claims its products inhibit cancer cell growth and reduce inflammation, according to the FDA.</p> <p><a href="http://www.kvi.com/home/featured/296218731.html?tab=video&c=y">http://www.kvi.com/home/featured/296218731.html?tab=video&c=y</a></p>

FDA Warns “Don’t Get Your Dog Stoned” With the Uptick of Pet Hemp Products and Clean Up Your Advertising Warning To Two Companies Selling the Products…

This is not unexpected and there are two companies now that seem to be jumping the gun a little bit on what cannabis can do for your dog.  O...

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How Claim Settlements Are So Difficult At Optum-Are Billing Codes are Locked In Fort Knox…

<p>This is an article from the New York Times and frankly after reading this I don’t think the folks trying assist the patient knew what to do.  This also goes to show you how very complex medical billing is.  The person at Optum would not give out the code? <img align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ACKXu66dgyk/VCrebdIALxI/AAAAAAABLb8/i1RbPT4Ld2g/image%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" /> See what a difference 10 extra minutes of time makes and the code that goes with it to get a claim paid!  Interesting too with all the technology Optum boasts about all the time in the fact that the patient received a snail mail letter as well.  On the other side of the coin if you are the wife of a banker and the doctor files a $75,000.00 claim for a hammertoe procedure that normally runs between 10-15k, no problem check was sent right out.  It was an out of network visit too.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/03/17509880-to-fix-hammer-toe-billed-by.html">$175,098.80 To Fix A Hammer Toe Billed by New York Podiatrist And the Insurer Paid It, Well Sort Of As They Sent the Check to the Patient By Accident, A New Investigation For “Out of Network” Charges Has Resulted</a></h5> <p>United Healthcare/Optum has so many subsidiaries anymore and they keep growing that their lawyers in this case didn’t even know the company sells anti fraud billing software, so they work it both ways.  The lap band case was somewhat entertaining as the United lawyer said they “have “ to depend on accurate billings from the doctors, again not even aware that United/Optum Insights has sold software that looks for fraud and errors in medical billing.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/lap-band-surgeries-go-full-circle-with.html">Lap band Surgeries Go Full Circle With Lawsuits–Now United Who’s Being Sued, Files Case Against Company Who Provided the Advertising and Services</a></h5> <p>So in this case the therapist couldn’t even get the correct code so you’re on your own if you run into complexities like this.  By the way here’s an archived post that might be worth a read to see all the types of businesses United is involved with today with the huge army of subsidiary companies they own.  That’s where all the action takes place today, in the subs.  BD  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/07/health-insurance-business-under-radar.html">Health Insurance Business Under the radar With Tiered Subsidiaries–Where All the Action Takes Place With Mergers, Acquisitions and Profit Centers-Subsidiary Watch</a></h5> <p> <hr />I have spent months trying to get reimbursed by <a href="https://www.optum.com/">Optum</a>, a health services company that is part of UnitedHealth Group, for $2,500 worth of psychotherapy. I mailed claim forms twice last year, and both times the company said it didn’t receive them. I faxed the form, after an assurance from a representative that she would call as soon as it arrived. I’m not sure it did; I received no call. I tried submitting the form online. I kept landing on an “Error Occurred” window.</p> <p>I filed a claim via email, but that produced only a snail mail letter from Optum denying the claim. Why? My therapist had used the wrong “code” on the form. Apparently, he used the code for 60 minutes of therapy. Optum will accept only the code for 45 or 50 minutes of therapy.</p> <p>When I explained this to my therapist, he said he had no idea how to find the correct code. And here is the punch line: When I called Optum, a rep said he would not divulge the correct code. My therapist ought to know it already, he said. When my therapist called Optum, the company refused to share the code with him too.</p> <p>This manager went on to say that in 2013, the American Psychological Association changed a number of Current Procedural Terminology codes, the numbers used as shorthand for treatment designations on claims forms. Mr. Request’s therapist was using the old code for 45 minutes of therapy instead of the new one.</p> <p>So that explains why the claim was rejected. It doesn’t explain why a rep at Optum would not share the new code, or the company’s Fort Knox-like imperviousness to letters, emails and a fax.</p> <p>If the system at Optum is as broken as this one patient suggests, you would expect an outpouring of animus toward the company on the Internet. And by gum, there is. At a site called Consumer Affairs, for instance, there are <a href="http://www.consumeraffairs.com/rx/prescription_solutions.html">more than 500 reviews of Optum</a>, most of them scathing. The words “horrible” and “horribly” get used a lot.</p> <p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/your-money/coaxing-a-tight-lipped-insurer-to-speak-up.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/15/your-money/coaxing-a-tight-lipped-insurer-to-speak-up.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0</a></p>

How Claim Settlements Are So Difficult At Optum-Are Billing Codes are Locked In Fort Knox…

This is an article from the New York Times and frankly after reading this I don’t think the folks trying assist the patient knew what to do....

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First World Penis Transplant Accomplished in South Africa–Recipient of an Organ Donor Program…

<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="151" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-6U0vgz5HMac/VQZ0SxgJgoI/AAAAAAABMHI/zzCjCif5syM/image%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="image" width="128"> <p>Wake Forest in the US has grown and transplanted penises for rabbits for a few years now and they work and it appears that technology has moved on to the human side now with this announcement.  The surgery took a long time and it was done for a patient in need who didn’t have one anymore due to a botched circumcision so here it is.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2009/11/regenerative-medicine-news-fully.html">Regenerative Medicine News – Fully Functional rabbit Penis Created That Works</a></h5> <p>One of these days on your driver’s license I guess men will have to make the decision on whether or not they want to be an organ donor, a penis organ donor as this one was transplanted from a man who died.  BD  </p> <p><iframe id="molvideoplayer" title="MailOnline Embed Player" height="303" src="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/embed/video/1167066.html" frameborder="0" width="498" scrolling="no"></iframe></p> <p> </p> <p> <hr> A 21-year-old man has undergone the world's first successful penis transplant. <p>The 'ground-breaking' operation took South African surgeons nine hours to perform, and allowed the patient to urinate normally and become sexually active again.</p> <p>Three years ago the man, who remains unidentified, was forced to have his penis amputated after a botched circumcision.</p> <p>Each year thousands of young men, mainly from the Xhosa tribe in South Africa, have their foreskins removed in traditional rituals, with experts estimating around 250 losing their penises each year to medical complications. </p> <p> <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2993555/World-s-PENIS-transplant-Man-21-organ-restored-amputated-botched-circumcision.html#ixzz3UNeQCnVb">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2993555/World-s-PENIS-transplant-Man-21-organ-restored-amputated-botched-circumcision.html#ixzz3UNeQCnVb</a></p>

First World Penis Transplant Accomplished in South Africa–Recipient of an Organ Donor Program…

Wake Forest in the US has grown and transplanted penises for rabbits for a few years now and they work and it appears that technology has m...

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The Social Security Death Index-More Flawed Data–Information Gets Sold To Credit Agencies, Banks and More…

<p>Here’s yet another side on the data selling epidemic in the US but this is a little different.  Sure we all know how mistakes are made but as consumers we should also have the right to have those items fixed in a timely manner.  Listen to the video and this is not uncommon.<img align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_v3zjJigoAPE/TdalmYP75PI/AAAAAAAAxmg/DG4Qtifj89U/image_thumb%5B2%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" />  It’s a known fact that businesses, banks, insurers and more are out to make buck any way they can selling your data and they don’t care if the data is correct or flawed.  A few years ago I wrote about the Social Security Death Index and at that time it was estimated there were more than 30,000 people listed as dead who were still alive.  This story also looks at the other side with people who should be dead, and are dead, that still existing as living at the Social Security Administration.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011/09/audit-finds-dead-consumers-still.html">Audit Finds Dead Consumers Still Getting Social Security Checks</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011/10/social-security-master-death-index-data.html">Social Security Master Death Index Data Flawed–Over 31,000 Living Found in the Index</a></h5> <p>So there you have both sides of the story with flawed data.  Listen to the one woman who was arrested and even worse had to live in her car as she was wiped of the map completely, could not get a bank account or anything.  I keep warning<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="150" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-xZwp7JZiRO8/VQZq3lrcv9I/AAAAAAABMG4/fpFDev5IqQA/image%25255B4%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="222" /> all about the “repackaging” of our personal data and this video tells that story pretty well.  Read the link below and be especially cognizant of this if you were in the Anthem data breach.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-data-exchange-buy-and-sell-data-on.html">“The Data Exchange” Buy and Sell Data on Self Service Website, One More Reason to Index and License Data Sellers-This Appears to be Open Game for Selling Repackaged Personal Data-No Privacy At All</a></h5> <p>Social Security said they had no death data for over 6 million people who were over 112 years of age and those folks were opening up bank accounts and more, so there’s the fraud side of it.  </p> <p>The one woman has to carry a letter from Social Security with her for the rest of her month.  It is updated every month for her to show.  It would certainly help people to know who all Social Security sells their data to.  This way it could be much easier for those to repair the flawed data.  The problem of flawed data is not limited to just Social Security as people not not sniffing and checking the integrity of the data, look what the city of Buffalo did.  A lot of dead people were given health insurance benefits and did even the insurers question any of it, nope as it was premiums coming in and they knew there would be no claims, all profit.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2010/08/city-of-buffalo-has-paid-over-2-million.html">City of Buffalo Has Paid Over $2 Million to Provide Health Insurance for Hundreds of Dead People-Some as Many as 4 Years</a></h5> <p> </p> <p><embed src="http://www.cbsnews.com/common/video/cbsnews_video.swf" scale="noscale" salign="lt" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" background="#000000" width="425" height="279" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" FlashVars="pType=embed&si=254&pid=HQumjRwGy6Gx&url=http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/dead-or-alive" /></embed></p> <p>We need to license and index ALL the data sellers in the US so consumers have a chance to be able to fix the flawed data that’s floating around out there as this is growing by the day.  I’m on it all the time and have been for 3 years with writing to the FTC, and select members of Congress to create this law so we know who they are!  Would you like to see what data your health insurer buys and sells about you?  I think you would be floored to see it all as again it’s all about making money.  </p> <p><a href="http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776"><em>Here’s my campaign and please help me out if you could</em></a>…it’s well appreciated no matter what the size donated.  Thanks so much!</p> <p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-identity-fraud-scott-pelley-60-minutes/">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/social-security-identity-fraud-scott-pelley-60-minutes/</a></p>

The Social Security Death Index-More Flawed Data–Information Gets Sold To Credit Agencies, Banks and More…

Here’s yet another side on the data selling epidemic in the US but this is a little different.  Sure we all know how mistakes are made but a...

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Major US Newspapers Sign Up and Invest With New Start Up That Will Charge You To Read The News–20 Cents Per Article, Probably Written by a Bot and Goes On You Credit Card–And Bolsters the $180 Million Dollar Year Personal Data Selling Business

<p>This is the way the crappy algorithms crumble.  What was once a great way of communicating what’s going on in the world is in algorithmic and monetary shambles.  <strong>First I like to point fingers at the greedy corporations out there who won’t spend a few more bucks advertising with the media papers.  I guess too you can shift some of that blame over to Google if you like as the long time co-existence is not what it used to be.</strong>  Maybe the impact of the <a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/">Killer Algorithms</a> is a little clearer to see here.  They are out there and this is how it works as software and algorithms<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="142" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Jg6XA2kqJWk/VQMNw30YtrI/AAAAAAABMGc/0UXKdqvupr0/image%25255B6%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; margin: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px" title="image" width="187" /> keep building on themselves so this start up is the perfect example of a new built based on activities of past algorithmic activity.  </p> <p>That being said the absolute root of the entire change of the media business is the fact that companies don’t advertise with them like they used to.  We have all seen that impact as the newspapers and media look for revenue streams.  Some of the resultant impact <strong>there includes a ton of what we call “click bait”</strong> which is an article with a headline designed to get your interest and read the article.  Along with reading the article, of course there’s the hope that you will also maybe click on one of the many ads and they make a bit of money just for exposing you to the ads.  It was worked this way for a long time.  As a small blogger though the money made I can tell you with Google is also not what it used to be either.  I have more traffic now than ever and less AdSense Google revenue and of course they change their formulas so the bigger guys make money and the small folks are squeezed as far as any decent ad revenue.  You can read that on almost any small blogger page that expresses and opinion.</p> <p>We also know that the news goes to the Wall Street stock market feeds so now we have another arena to think about and this has been discussed already with certain investors getting access to the news ahead of when the public feeds are released.  <strong>Nanex tracks this quite a bit with his charts on the trading markets and when you see huge activity ahead of news releases, it’s not hard to figure out that the bots who feed on news got a hold of something ahead of time.</strong>  Of course we have the doubting Thomas’s out there who don’t even have a clue on how this works or the huge money it can provide investors when “cheating” on the arrival of news occurs.  When the stock exchanges are running, please do keep in mind that the bots are the number one priority to read the news and change their investments, not us, we come second all the time.  It’s a bot-bot world is is not.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/why-do-we-discuss-supreme-court-ruling.html">Why Do We Discuss Supreme Court Ruling On Affordable Care Act Like a Bunch of Morons? Want to Make Changes and Review Legal Interpretation? Bring Code Please</a></h5> <p><strong>If you think the news articles start looking the same for content, you are correct as the journobots can take an article written by a journalist and re write it with a human programmed algorithm to look like a brand new story from another human writing their view…wrong…it’s a programmed algorithm doing the work and it does it so well that it can determine how to avoid plagiarism so nobody gets in trouble that way</strong>.  Gee just think, they need one “real” journalist to write the initial article and then the “knock off jounobots” can go to work and create dozens if not hundreds of articles re-arranged to legally be correct and make you think that due to the number of articles you are reading, “that’s a areal hot topic”..wrong..you got duped again and you will follow the consensus of what you see out there.  Think news is not being rigged to a degree?  You better think again and choose what you read wisely as there’s still a lot of good stuff reported by all means but eh sharks to expand upon it and do “knock off news” with bots is very much alive and well.  There are limitations to what the bots can do with reporting news and they will and do miss the “human insight” a lot as they are not programmed to go there, they can’t do it.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/04/limitations-and-risks-of-machine-ethics.html">Limitations And Risks Of Machine Ethics (That Really Don’t Exist) - Abstract Basically Substantiating the Existence of What I Coined As “The Attacks of the Killer Algorithms”</a></h5> <p>Recently when it came to “knock off news” written by bots, the topic of the Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare had to have tons of bots rewriting it as I had a realistic answer there with the technology side and everything else you read n the news was just a re-written repeat, ignoring the fact that the machines run the Affordable Car Act and I went so far (and not intending to hurt anyone but rather just talk facts) the the news articles looked like a bunch of morons discussing a topic where they forgot the technology side of the ACA and all had the same wrong perceptions all over the place, one article after another.   They got a little too virtual with their journo bots for a few days.  I made a couple of comments on them but then stopped as what the heck am I doing writing a comment on an article written by a bot that’s only there for click bait, so see I get caught up at times too until I realize the article was written as “knock off news” by a bot.  This really became noticeable and woke me up a bit as they all said the same thing:)  Keep your eyes open for “knock off bot news’ when you read.  After that experience, I sure do.  </p> <p>In addition, more and more of the news is being written by bots today.  One company who markets and sells the “journo bot” software said that over a billion articles were written last year by their bots.  Ok, so when you dole out your 20 cents, do you get a human produced article or one by a bot.  It used to be the bots wrote very boring analytical stories, and they still do but now they are becoming more talented to add some human type elements to the writing style.  This gets even more interesting as the software comes with full on customization and some new rigging is made easier here too as the parameters can be set to to look for certain patterns with the exchange bots, the high frequency trading bots maybe in particular and set an execute to release the news from there.  Anytime code can be used to rig a market and make money and dupe the government with another perception of the process,<img align="right" height="123" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-BjX_vsYCQmM/VPlWO5RmzHI/AAAAAAABMEk/u4zAu7a3aZ0/image%25255B9%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" width="184" /> they’ll do it.  We have enough history for sure on the <strong><u>code hosers</u></strong> but the public doesn’t seem ready to believe the folks that tell them the truth when it comes to code and math sadly.</p> <p><strong>So, are you going to fork out 20 cents to read an article?  Me, probably not as that goes against what the news was set out to be.  You could buy the entire print version of some papers for that and maybe that’s not a bad idea at times.  There are certain times that I do like to read books and the paper without being online, so I do both.</strong>  Here’s what you get sometimes too with all of the bot produced content..any more it’s like quantitated madness with some of the news being so bad and spuriously correlated. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/12/quantitated-justification-for-believing.html">Quantitated Justification For Believing Things That Are Not True And Using Mathematical Processes To Fool Ourselves-The Journalistic Bot Functionality Debuts As Media Can’t Resist the Formulas…</a></h5> <p><strong>Now to here’s the big winners here, the credit card folks who sell your transaction and behavior patterns to those folks who want to analyze and score you and make money.</strong>  This is so bad and rotten to the core that I truly think the public doesn’t believe this is happening and shines it on.  I can understand that as it does run behind the scenes and you don’t see it.  That’s how they plan it and get dupe the public right and left to get your personal data to sell.  This all moves along fine and dandy until some flawed and maybe not flawed data that you didn’t intend to get out there denies you access to something and boy does that happen right and left.  Again tune in to the honest quants and mathematicians at the Killer Algorithms page and listen up as that’s the truth of what’s going on, or again you can choose to be bliss and wait your turn until one of the Killer Algorithms gives you a good bite and creates tons of havoc and stress for you. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/its-time-to-look-at-some-of-proprietary.html">It’s Time To Look At Some of the Proprietary Code Running in the US–Too Many Companies and Banks Are Playing “Techno-God” Saying “Trust Me” With the Numbers and Stats…</a></h5> <p>It’s so frustrating to those who know how to code and do math to see this horrific marketing dog and pony show out there deceiving the pubic over and over and over but again watch what those bots are putting out there to manipulate and you may have to pay 20 cents per article to be manipulated now.  I can certainly understand the frustrations of journalists in all of this as that’s not what news is all about, but in order to keep jobs, they have to play part of the game too.  </p> <p><strong>It’s interesting as when you see some of them leave the “game” they end up with true confessions of some type as to what occurred at their prior job.  I could almost go so far as to say the President’s PR campaign too is starting to look like a lot of “knock off” media too, same thing all the time but new humor gets added so we watch it, again it’s same stuff over and over</strong>.  I do worry about the White House too as they have some folks there that are into confusing the virtual world values with the real world, and their bot puts it out in news letters.  Now this is really scary to<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="158" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-hGCA5Ul7FZg/VQMNxz9ClnI/AAAAAAABMGk/32od1YZvVtQ/image%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="image" width="223" /> me as the dupers at those high levels have not a clue on how the smart people perceive the nonsense of publishing stats and numbers that nobody can predict.  Come clean and do it right and don’t shoot yourself in the foot.</p> <p><strong>Last but not least, well if you are dumb enough to use a charge card to pay 20 cents to read articles, well there’s more data to collect and sell about you.</strong>  You have to remember this business model is alive and well and runs everywhere as the public is so easy to dupe and runs away from math and code, so what does Wall Street and the tech companies do?  They use code and math to dupe the heck out of you with a marketed perception with plenty of stats that you suck up and feel really good that the perception you created in your mind was substantiated by something you read.  Sorry folks you missed the whole double edge of how the marketing, coding and journo bots work and God help you, really God help all of us that fall into the Duper Pits and suck in all of this.  It’s time to be a skeptic as there’s still a lot of good material out there, just separating it from “knock off news” and some useless “Journo bot” produced material is the problem.  You can read the link below and see how our Congress just flat out can’t model either as they refuse to use modern technologies that will help them and let themselves be duped into thinking things can still work the old way without enough information.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/senators-create-bill-to-go-after-data.html">Senators Create a Bill to Go After the Data Brokers Selling Our Personal Data But It Doesn’t Go Far Enough-Tons of Companies And Banks Are Also Selling Our Data and Repackaging Information About Us…</a></h5> <p><a href="http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776">We really do need an index and the ability to license data sellers as</a> the data is so flawed and the sellers just don’t care anymore and don’t look at the data at all.  I think is this a good point to put a recent video from <a href="http://edge.org/node/25972">Computer Scientist Jaron Lanier in here and listen to him and</a> he makes sense and is telling the truth as he’s like me except a lot smarter but the same effort here to wake folks up to the fact that the algorithms and corporations are about the same anymore, ready to dupe and take your money as there’s no real communication going on here.  Below is another interview and Jaron explains there’s really no difference in what’s going on with Wall Street and Silicon Valley, it’s all code and he discusses a bit of privacy.   BD</p> <p><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0" height="294" id="flashObj" width="460"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=2360419624001&linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.time.com%2Ftime%2Fvideo%2Fplayer%2F0%2C32068%2C2360419624001_2142776%2C00.html&playerID=1917933886001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAABGEUMg~,hNlIXLTZFZn-NQOazMchMDWH0SI1hX7f&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=2360419624001&linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fcontent.time.com%2Ftime%2Fvideo%2Fplayer%2F0%2C32068%2C2360419624001_2142776%2C00.html&playerID=1917933886001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAABGEUMg~,hNlIXLTZFZn-NQOazMchMDWH0SI1hX7f&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="460" height="294" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object></p> <hr />Blendle, an exciting Dutch startup that has attracted 200,000 users in the region to a platform that lets readers make micropayments for individual newspaper and magazine articles rather than having to sign up to monthly digital subscriptions, has just got even more exciting. <p>The New York Times (<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/new-york-times-and-axel-springer-invest-in-dutch-startup-blendle-2014-10">which is also an investor in Blendle</a>), The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have signed up to the platform.</p> <p>Here's how Blendle works: Users register for Blendle and put in their credit-card details just once at the beginning of the process in which they create a newsfeed of stories about the topics in which they are interested. When they click on a headline, the app/website takes a small payment. And — perhaps the most intriguing part of the whole offer — if readers don't like an article, they can get an instant refund if they provide feedback.</p> <p> <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-york-times-wall-street-journal-the-washington-post-sign-up-to-blendle-2015-3#ixzz3UHHNYZRa">http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-york-times-wall-street-journal-the-washington-post-sign-up-to-blendle-2015-3#ixzz3UHHNYZRa</a></p>

Major US Newspapers Sign Up and Invest With New Start Up That Will Charge You To Read The News–20 Cents Per Article, Probably Written by a Bot and Goes On You Credit Card–And Bolsters the $180 Million Dollar Year Personal Data Selling Business

This is the way the crappy algorithms crumble.  What was once a great way of communicating what’s going on in the world is in algorithmic an...

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Ebola Comes Back to US-American Healthcare Worker Tested Positive and Will Be Flown To the NIH For Treatment

<p>This is the same hospital that treated the nurse from Texas who came down with Ebola and it’s probably the best place for the<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="124" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-pjpm_ISfyro/VQJx9MNZ0hI/AAAAAAABMGI/4q3UxoEfgx8/image%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="image" width="244" /> patient to go.  The NIH Clinical Center's Special Clinical Studies Unit in Bethesda, Maryland is where the patient will be treated as they are fully set up for isolation.  BD </p> <p> <hr />An American healthcare worker has tested positive for the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/ebola/">Ebola virus</a> in Sierra Leone and is being flown back to the United States for treatment, the National Institutes of Health said Thursday.</p> <p>The worker, who was not identified, had been volunteering at an Ebola treatment center in Sierra Leone, one of the West African nations hardest hit by the epidemic.</p> <p>The NIH said the patient will be transported in isolation on a chartered jet, and is expected to arrive Friday.</p> <p>Word of the latest U.S. Ebola patient came as the World Health Organization marked a grim milestone in the epidemic. It announced Thursday that the virus has now killed more than 10,000 people since the outbreak began last year. Almost all of the victims have been in the three West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone</p> <p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-healthcare-worker-with-ebola-heads-to-maryland-hospital/">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/american-healthcare-worker-with-ebola-heads-to-maryland-hospital/</a></p>

Ebola Comes Back to US-American Healthcare Worker Tested Positive and Will Be Flown To the NIH For Treatment

This is the same hospital that treated the nurse from Texas who came down with Ebola and it’s probably the best place for the patient to go...

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FTC Says the White House Privacy Bill of Rights Pretty Much Sucks-White House Can’t Model For One, And Leaves Data Selling Companies In Complete Control-Time to Index and License…

<p>Well this is not something new as last year, the White House was also living way too virtual and their policies last year sucked even more.  For one, they can’t even include the words “data seller” in anything they put forward and it’s a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo and<img align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ljV2UEat9qI/VOkMeroWg2I/AAAAAAABL9M/YEJM2Ndokzw/image10.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" /> it’s largely because they are out of touch.  The current administration seems to be captivated with “selfies” as we see one after another and then yesterday we had the head of Health and Human Services and the Surgeon General just so proud of themselves for posting a selfie:)  You can’t make this stuff up, just watch the news every day.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/05/white-house-privacy-report-privacy-bill.html">White House Privacy Report , “Privacy Bill of Rights”Vague & Complex Verbiage, No Mention of Creating An Index to Identify All Data Sellers Or The Fact That It’s an Epidemic Leading To Privacy Violations & Flawed Data, Hurting Many Consumers As It Actively Contributes to Inequality</a></h5> <p>Efforts in the Senate, not much better and again another group that confuses virtual with real world values over there too.  We’re not even going to discuss the House at this point as I think they are worse than the Senate and White House together with being stuck in virtual values.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/senators-create-bill-to-go-after-data.html">Senators Create a Bill to Go After the Data Brokers Selling Our Personal Data But It Doesn’t Go Far Enough-Tons of Companies And Banks Are Also Selling Our Data and Repackaging Information About Us…</a></h5> <p>You do have to give the FTC credit for speaking up a bit and they need laws so then can enforce and act as well.  It’s hard when the digital illits can’t put it all together and “model” a law that’s useful.  The Senate Bill above only addresses data brokers and shoot there’s tons more out there and the data selling business which strips our dignity and is becoming highly flawed is worth around $180 billion a year.  Look at CVS and Walgreens each making 1 to 2 billion a year selling our data.  The big danger is repackaging and I have said this over and over since the Anthem breach and every one is just bliss but these hackers can make a lot of money with some very basic SQL skills and repost the stolen data to look legit on<img align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-n42x8-ryF7s/VPx5zhsBRII/AAAAAAABMFo/OMI7oItOHXo/image%25255B4%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" /> websites where data is for sale.  They would need to make no mention of Anthem either as there’s tons of other queries to be written to sell of some data. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-data-exchange-buy-and-sell-data-on.html">“The Data Exchange” Buy and Sell Data on Self Service Website, One More Reason to Index and License Data Sellers-This Appears to be Open Game for Selling Repackaged Personal Data-No Privacy At All</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breachcrooks-want-to-sell.html">Anthem Data Breach–Crooks Want to Sell Data Too–The Impact of the “Data Selling For Profit Epidemic” That Exists in the US With Scoring Consumers Removing Access and Human Dignity</a></h5> <p>The World Privacy Forum and myself seem to be the only ones talking about the secret scoring and repackaging of our data.  If you listen only to major news, well you miss it all too as they don’t touch on it too often and with bots writing 1/3 of the news today, well who knows what the bot might say instead as well.  It’s time to index and license all data sellers, and I have said that for 3 years now.  When it sink in?  Help the campaign if you will…I’m working it.  </p> <p>Again it’s very scary when neither Congress nor the White House knows what’s really going on and how to craft and model a bill that pertains to modern technologies like data selling that keep inequality in the US rolling at epic speeds.  The data is flawed.  BD  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/data-selling-and-direct-correlation-to.html">Data Selling and the Direct Correlation To Accelerated Inequality - Epidemic Spreading Like A Virus Moving Money Keeping Corporations Cash Rich and Consumers Cash Poor</a></h5> <p> <hr />As the Federal Trade Commission looks to work with the White House to <a href="http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/ftc-aims-to-tighten-data-security-laws/#.VP3OLYF4rwZ">tighten data security laws</a>, consumer protection officials have been both proponents and critics of the Consumer Privacy Bill that was released last month from the White House.</p> <p>While Jessica Rich, the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau Director, has been an advocate of the bill’s purpose, she, along with Edith Ramirez — another FTC official— have been sharp to criticize the bill recently, particularly because of the vagueness of the language the officials believe will leave too many loopholes against actually protecting consumers.</p> <p>“We have concerns that many of the provisions in the draft legislation won’t provide consumers with the strong and enforceable protections needed to protect their privacy in this day and age,” <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/03/09/federal-consumer-protection-official-blasts-white-house-privacy-proposal/?mod=ST1">Rich</a> said in an interview Friday, March 6, with <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>. “There’s a lot of procedures and provisions that just create an enormous number of loopholes.”</p> <p>Rich claimed that the legislation, as currently written, still gives companies the power to withhold data from a consumer, and provides them to power to maintain the control of the data without factoring in what’s best for the consumer. </p> <p><a href="http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/ftc-criticizes-vagueness-of-consumer-privacy-bill/#.VP_MvVNtfEQ">http://www.pymnts.com/news/2015/ftc-criticizes-vagueness-of-consumer-privacy-bill/#.VP_MvVNtfEQ</a></p>

FTC Says the White House Privacy Bill of Rights Pretty Much Sucks-White House Can’t Model For One, And Leaves Data Selling Companies In Complete Control-Time to Index and License…

Well this is not something new as last year, the White House was also living way too virtual and their policies last year sucked even more. ...

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More Screaming Substantiation To Fund “And Use” the Office of Technology Assessment For Congress-Come On Folks Get Yourself Some Help and Ditch This Haunting “Sebelius Syndrome” Of Artificial Perceptions…

<p>I swear anymore with some of the news we read people have really fallen into this Sebelius Syndrome of perceptions that are just not true.  Of course the press feeds this too as of late some of their perceptions and articles (and not all as there’s a ton of good stuff out there too) it putting some nutty stuff out there too.  Recently I said the Supreme Court decision about the Affordable Care Act was being discussed like a<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="99" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-n42x8-ryF7s/VPx5zhsBRII/AAAAAAABMFo/OMI7oItOHXo/image%25255B4%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="280" /> bunch of morons, and it’s still rolling out there.  It’s getting old and sometimes just flat out hilarious to hear the perceptions on technology from the novice who has no clue.  Anyone want to discuss Hillary email servers and her spam filters…well why not..we’re hearing all kinds of other nutty stories about it:)</p> <p>Seriously on the Affordable Care Act, everyone wrote like the code issues on Healthcare. Gov was a one time issue..wrong…it lives forever anytime you need to make changes as the machines run most of the functionality of the program.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/why-do-we-discuss-supreme-court-ruling.html">Why Do We Discuss Supreme Court Ruling On Affordable Care Act Like a Bunch of Morons? Want to Make Changes and Review Legal Interpretation? Bring Code Please</a></h5> <p>Now we have four senators wanting even greater specifics on the ONC interoperability roadmap?  They have no clue what they really want and if they did a better job on keeping up to date with technology, we would see less of this nonsense type of perceptions and demands.  Even the tech folks can’t give you specifics as it’s the way the world works today as some algorithmic formula jumps out of left field to make major unexpected changes all the time.  It happens daily in the stock market.  We’re just humans and really don’t know exactly how all of the complex algorithms will always play out.  </p> <p>These folks everywhere, DC and local governments are finding out that extreme complex legal verbiage doesn’t always govern and regulate algorithms and code as tech folks and quants do and have for years, just model around it.  When it circles back around lawmakers everywhere scratch their heads and can’t figure out what happened?  The code ran hog ass wild with an interpretation of technologists and quants that would work, in other words risk fiddling and proprietary code working in the background that the “verbiage only” guys can’t or choose not too see.  <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="126" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-vW4TwnpauA4/VPx50kS8LJI/AAAAAAABMFw/xWudQnGppZM/image%25255B8%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="270" />Heck if I were an evil person, who wouldn’t be rolling up a lot of cheating code in a compiler where nobody ever gets to see it, and that’s the reality of the world today.  Yes there is a lot of code that needs to be protected that is increasing efficiency but the perceptual crap of those stuck with “Stat Rat Fever” needs to be out there to be verified.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/its-time-to-look-at-some-of-proprietary.html">It’s Time To Look At Some of the Proprietary Code Running in the US–Too Many Companies and Banks Are Playing “Techno-God” Saying “Trust Me” With the Numbers and Stats…</a></h5> <p>So again, hey four Senators, get that agency funded and have a smart group do the real hard research for you.  If I were serving in Congress I would want that agency as we live in the most complex times ever and many are starting to look “stupid” as they yield out more and more whacky perceptions that technologists just roll on the floor reading about in the news.  Don’t do this to yourself and get some respect back as we as constituents would like to support you but like the rest of us, get your perceptions back in line with the real world and don’t let the media stuff make the confusion even worse.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/bill-to-restore-office-of-technology.html">Bill To Restore Office of Technology Assessment Was Defeated Again This Year As Congress Chooses to Remain In the Dark With Technology At A Time When Private Industry Is Doing Just the Opposite - “The Grays” Live On…</a></h5> <p>At this point I’m really asking “how long do some folks want to remain dumb and bliss”?  If myself and others as technologists started talking like experts on automobiles nobody would stand for it as it’s not our field; however we certainly seem to have a high tolerance<img align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-0uYxyjnEZEM/U8_UziEVWBI/AAAAAAABK30/8jhFku4xJPg/image%25255B10%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" /> for people who can’t tell the difference between a virtual or real world value.  This is getting to be a dangerous game as some of those virtual values are stepping over into the real world and really hurting consumers right and left, so fix it would you?  I’m being fair here and not doing any individual attacks but damn, you even see the same behavior from the White House, those living too virtual and stuck “Stat Rat Fever” perceptions…just throw any old numbers out there as we know the public is dumb and they’ll suck up anything.  </p> <p><strong>The problem is not everyone, like me for example, thinks this is a good idea but rather shows how “duped” everyone really is and that scares me.</strong>  You just have to laugh when you see stuff coming out of the White House that says 3300 fewer hospital admits will occur with Climate Control…well..duh!  Of course we know and want to improve things but damn don’t send stuff out that shows the further persistence of the Sebelius Syndrome of perception madness, backed up with a big case of Stat Rat Fever with the text.   </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/junk-science-appearing-everywhere-even.html">Junk Science Appearing Everywhere, Even The White House “PR Templated” Correspondence Creates Spurious Correlations…</a></h5> <p>We end up with the Democratic Dupers that suck in any numbers and the GOP on the other end that accepts no numbers..WTF?  BD  </p> <p> <hr />While the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s draft <a href="http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/ONC-Issues-Draft-Interoperability-Roadmap-49712-1.html">Interoperability Roadmap</a> attempts to define a framework for interoperable electronic health records, five Republican Senators charge that the document is heavy on generalities and light on specifics.</p> <p>“The ONC roadmap provides a framework for responsibility, governance, and accountability in regard to the future development and implementation of interoperable EHRs. But instead of offering specific objectives, deadlines, and action items, ONC’s roadmap falls short on the nitty gritty technology specifics that vendors and providers need when developing IT products,” write Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.), Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), and John Thune (R-S.D.) in a <a href="http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2015/03/04/where-is-hitechs-35-billion-dollar-investment-going/">blog</a> published by <em>Health Affairs.</em></p> <p>The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, which is chaired by Alexander, was scheduled to hold a March 5 hearing on “America’s Health IT Transformation: Translating the Promise of Electronic Health Records Into Better Care.” However, it was postponed. Despite the delay, Alexander and his colleagues will no doubt keep the interoperability of EHRs on their legislative agenda in the new Congress. </p> <p><a href="http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/Senators-Blast-ONC-Interoperability-Roadmap-for-Lack-of-Details-49948-1.html?utm_campaign=daily-mar%206%202015&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ET=healthdatamanagement%3Ae3956161%3A3697393a%3A&st=email">http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/Senators-Blast-ONC-Interoperability-Roadmap-for-Lack-of-Details-49948-1.html?utm_campaign=daily-mar%206%202015&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ET=healthdatamanagement%3Ae3956161%3A3697393a%3A&st=email</a></p>

More Screaming Substantiation To Fund “And Use” the Office of Technology Assessment For Congress-Come On Folks Get Yourself Some Help and Ditch This Haunting “Sebelius Syndrome” Of Artificial Perceptions…

I swear anymore with some of the news we read people have really fallen into this Sebelius Syndrome of perceptions that are just not true.  ...

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CMS to Rerun the Medicare Advantage Risk Scores–Dating Back to 2008 To Catch the Automated Risk Fiddlers of Said Insurer Fraud Amounting to Around $70 Billion–Be Ready For It…

<p>I have covered this a couple of times and it appears now that Medicare is wanting get their money back from the risk fiddling insurers and when it comes to algorithms and fraud, nobody does it better, right?  Well they have all the secrets as they audit their own claims and files for the same thing so they kind of know what can be buried in a bunch of algorithms.  It took CMS 5 years to figure it out.  Now that we<img align="right" height="56" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRp9TBlvWqtr16ku9oa-uGY_yLITLV9hYmtozmPi5XdbJ5RW7Sm" style="float: right; display: inline" width="142" /> have Andy Slavitt running CMS, who’s totally a numbers guy and did some of the same modeling at Ingenix, well here it comes.  </p> <p>We can all go back to the Ingenix legal cases to where they used algorithmic formulas, many of which turned up false positives to accuse folks of cheating and I’m sure there were some that did, but long and short the AMA class action suit proved that Ingenix was using risk fiddling factors that short paid doctors and patients on out of network charges for 15 years.  So my opinion here on this is now we have the expert at the helm of such models and a rerun of risk fiddler factors is in the works.  </p> <p>I just might add that perhaps the insurers didn’t expect CMS to ever take any action on this as there’s the big possibility of benefits to be cut from seniors covered or a hike in premiums.  Nothing’s for free out there today and those are the normal paths taken to recover money and people get the losing end of big business fiddling with algorithms and code.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/cms-discovers-that-insurers-offering.html">CMS Discovers That Insurers Offering Medicare Advantage “Really Know How To Sharp Shoot A Model With Adjusting Risk For Profit”, A Common Everyday Occurrence in Financial Markets… </a></h5> <p>This is also being pushed I think due to the whistle blower suits that are being filed as well stating that there were automated risk fiddler factors built in and I remember seeing a news article talking about how seniors had more alcohol problems than we thought..so we might ask the question here, do they really or was it risk fiddling to put the payments into a higher bracket..hmmmm…what a question.  </p> <p>So again what’s the exposure here for providers and patients.  That remains to be seen as you don’t think insurers are going to eat all of this even though they may have been proactive in promoting risk fiddling do you?  Of course not as so many of them are <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="114" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-6VfPfsMlP2s/VPppHHVXgSI/AAAAAAABMFU/hojbfbnGAH8/image%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="image" width="209" />involved in stock buy backs now (which you also pay for) to increase the value of their stock and and enrich CEO compensation.  <strong>Maybe we should ponder this, can the networks get any narrower with insurer quants squeezing out every dime they can find?  </strong></p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/12/insurance-carrier-stock-buy-backs.html">Insurance Carrier stock Buy Backs Continue to Rise While Consumers Are Finding It Harder to Afford Some Policies and Care With Dealing With High Deductibles And Narrow Networks…</a></h5> <p><strong>In the financial world you don’t change the portfolio to squirrel around with risk to attain profit, you just change the math.  In the insurance world you don’t squirrel around with the policy, you just change the math, same thing and put people through absolute misery to do this.</strong></p> <p><em>“<a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2014/August/07/Medicare-advantage-plans-exaggerate-diseases-to-make-money-says-study.aspx?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+khn+%28All+Kaiser+Health+News%29">Medicare pays the Advantage health plans</a> higher rates for sicker patients and less for healthy people using a complex formula called a “risk score.” But the HHS study spells out several ways health plans have inflated those scores, from reporting surprisingly high levels of medical conditions such as alcohol or drug dependence to billing for an inordinately high number of patients with complications of diabetes.”</em></p> <p><strong>Stay tuned as to the progress on when this is going to occur this year and you might want to see what your exposure could be as a provider or a patient even if you had some major bills.  I thing the government might be easy on the patients though.  </strong>From what I read from the letter, CMS is going to deduct from future payments.   It’s the same old nightmare United does in taking money from current claims to charge back old claims and it’s a nightmare for physicians in their accounting everywhere. </p> <p><em>“CMS will sweep diagnoses submitted for a prior payment year as of the deadline. MA Organizations should look to the monthly payment letter to determine when adjustments will be applied to payments.”</em> </p> <p>So here’s job one from Andy Slavitt, the new CMS director with the Medicare Advantage money take back.  Again when Andy Slavitt was with Ingenix, this was a primary function that company (a sub of United) provided to audit for fraud, just now the tables are turned and he’s going to be running algorithms to raise money for the government.  A while back both Humana and United discussed setting some money aside for this.  BD  </p> <p> <hr />On March 3, Cheri Rice, CMS’ Director of Medicare Plan Payment Group, <a href="https://www.gormanhealthgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/HPMS-Memo-2015-Rerun-Schedule.pdf">released a memo </a>notifying all Medicare Advantage Organizations, PACE Organizations, and certain Demonstrations of its intent to rerun risk scores during the calendar year 2015.</p> <p>The memo was brief and a bit vague, but the impact to health plans and providers could not be clearer. CMS will be rerunning risk score data and the corresponding payments made to plans dating back to 2008 Dates of Service (DOS), payment year 2009. Additionally, the memo anticipates that plans will clean up their data by submitting deletes. This could raise the specter of false claims if a plan fails to submit deletes when they knew, or should have known, of unsubstantiated risk adjustment submissions. This could get ugly, and fast.</p> <p><a href="http://www.healthcarepayernews.com/content/money-grab-cms-rerun-risk-scores-recovery">http://www.healthcarepayernews.com/content/money-grab-cms-rerun-risk-scores-recovery</a></p>

CMS to Rerun the Medicare Advantage Risk Scores–Dating Back to 2008 To Catch the Automated Risk Fiddlers of Said Insurer Fraud Amounting to Around $70 Billion–Be Ready For It…

I have covered this a couple of times and it appears now that Medicare is wanting get their money back from the risk fiddling insurers and w...

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Senators Create a Bill to Go After the Data Brokers Selling Our Personal Data But It Doesn’t Go Far Enough-Tons of Companies And Banks Are Also Selling Our Data and Repackaging Information About Us…

<p>If you read my blog often enough then you know I am the accidental privacy advocate around here.  I have had my own issues and the last one was a company that was obviously off shore calling me on the phone about a clinical trial.  Now I know the blind calls where they are fishing <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="241" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-BjX_vsYCQmM/VPlWO5RmzHI/AAAAAAABMEk/u4zAu7a3aZ0/image%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="360" />but this caller had my name and information and records they said that showed I took blood thinners and there’s nothing farther from the truth.  This is another issue with data selling, the flawed data and sloppy data work that takes place when your information is repackaged.  It happens all the time.</p> <p>Granted the data brokers are a huge issue and good they are addressing this but it leaves out a lot of the other data sellers that exist out there too, so now what?  We put one band aid on one group and let the rest ride?  That’s about what I can make out of reading this article here.  We need to index and license all data sellers and this article proves it all the way around as there’s only a portion of the problem being addressed.  I made another post related to “repackaging” our data relative to the Anthem breach.  All the hackers need is some basic SQL skills and your data is sold off in a new data base with no records of where it came from and there’s websites now opening up to barter and sell data.  Read this link below for more on that.  With 80 million files they could spoof and create legit looking data for sale that was stolen.  Anyway, this law will do nothing in that area at all.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-data-exchange-buy-and-sell-data-on.html">“The Data Exchange” Buy and Sell Data on Self Service Website, One More Reason to Index and License Data Sellers-This Appears to be Open Game for Selling Repackaged Personal Data-No Privacy At All</a></h5> <p>Who are all the data sellers?  We don’t know and why having a licensing and indexing law would really help.  ABC company may not be a data broker and they might sell tons of your data.  What about United Healthcare?  They sells tons of our data and have for years, usually under one of their subsidiaries of which they have armies of.  As a matter of fact, that’s how health insurers work it with subs so you don’t see or recognize those activities that take place there.  </p> <p><strong>Three years ago I started talking about licensing data sellers and have tons of blog posts on that topic.  Nobody listens and so the data selling business is continuing to be sending out flawed information which we can’t find the origins to fix and have no way of tracking it, so as a consumer you are screwed and have to explain and live with the flaws they make.  By the way, you do the fixing on your own dime while they make millions.</strong> </p> <p><a href="http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776">Here’s the campaign that has more links and videos that explain this awful epidemic that hurts all of us.</a> </p> <p> The data selling business, which is a for profit epidemic in the US is worth about $180 billion a year and growing.  All the lawyers who have worked on privacy over the years have failed as their perceptions of the business being able to self regulate are wrong.  We go back again and visit <img align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ljV2UEat9qI/VOkMeroWg2I/AAAAAAABL9M/YEJM2Ndokzw/image10.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" />the Sebelius Syndrome again with whacked out perceptions and people doing laws that do not understand data mechanics and thus we get laws that do little.</p> <p>Shoot I even have the Anonymous folks telling me how the new hackers today are math experts and do all the work that data scientists do all the time.  Mathematicians and Quants repeat me on Twitter all the time about indexing too as this is data base 101 and again the perceptions of the lawyers here is why nothing have moved on this very quickly as they don’t get it.  When you have worked with data bases first hand, and I have in the past with legit business contracts, it’s not hard to see how the “jerks” would do their end of the business to make money.  You just put on a temporary jerk hat and think about some data mechanics and the answers are right in front of you, like thinking like an under cover cop in a way if you will.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/02/anthem-data-breachcrooks-want-to-sell.html">Anthem Data Breach–Crooks Want to Sell Data Too–The Impact of the “Data Selling For Profit Epidemic” That Exists in the US With Scoring Consumers Removing Access and Human Dignity</a></h5> <p>Best I can figure is that we still all want to be “data dumb” and try to control some of this with legal verbiage only.  That doesn’t work as<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="256" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Z02yWfgwPcA/VPlWQUZ3t9I/AAAAAAABMEs/n1eCg1sBwfI/image%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="image" width="340" /> all you have to do is look at banks and Wall Street and high frequency traders for that matter.  Their brains are their tools and they know how do a dupe and make you feel your verbiage is ok, while at the same time the back end runs algorithms up the ying yang and the folks with the flawed perceptions think they really did something..well not really, they were just algo duped.  </p> <p>These are the folks that stick with verbiage only and forget there’s code that needs to go along with their laws to make things work. <strong>Remember Healthcare.Gov?  It’s still not finished.  Want to repeal Obamacare?  Bring in some good coders ok, no matter which way things go</strong> (lol), this is the reality folks.  The short order computer code kitchen burned down years ago all of this takes time.   </p> <p>After you read about Argus at the link below, <a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/08/e-scoring-credit-algorithms-invisible.html">here’s another outfit like them called E-scoring</a> who does the same stuff and skirts out from under federal laws in how they classify their business.  This law would not touch these folks at all and the credit car folks like MasterCard and Visa are on a roll to sell your transactions where ever they find a buyer.  At the Argus link below, look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, doing the same thing buying up our personal data so they would need to be licensed too.  Richard Cordray as I have said many times is so slow with no data mechanics logic and is pretty much just a “low hanging fruit” guy.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/argus-analytics-produces-share-of.html">Argus Analytics Produces “Share of Credit Card” Data On Consumers - Digs Up The Dirt on Your Credit Card Behavior Patterns-US Consumer Protection Agency Is A Client-We Are Paying for Richard Cordray’s Slow Education Process</a></h5> <p>I have had a couple conversations with the World Privacy Forum and they too think licensing is a good place to start as again, who are all the data sellers?  We need to know so we can go back and get the flawed data they sell about us fixed.  Right now on some of the repackaging, we’re screwed as we can’t find the origin and even if we do, we may have been sold a half a dozen times since then and there’s no connection to get to all of them, so when you least expect it, the flawed data you thought you had fixed, well it pops up again!  </p> <p>Here’s my fund raiser campaign where I have been writing to various members of Congress and to the FTC for about 3 years now and am just trying to get a little compensation of sorts for my time as well as support as nobody else seems to get the full impact and the big picture here.  I sure wish Congress would fund the <a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/bill-to-restore-office-of-technology.html">Office of Technology Assessment</a> so they would have an agency tool to help them instead of being in the technological dark all the time and missing half the story.  It would really help a lot I think.   Watch this video of the Game “Data Dealer” and you’ll see how limited this Senate bill really is and how much they miss of the big picture. </p> <p><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x2eCAgQ1DTo" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>So once again, where’s the licensing here?  Like all other bills it will more than likely fail as it’s only verbiage again and not addressing the very smart folks who do the data work and the lobbyists who make money from selling data will be right there to make sure most if not all of it fails.  Again, how can you even think about regulating without knowing who the players are?  Do we expect stock brokers to self regulate, of course not and they couldn’t if they tried as they are very math model savvy and just look at high frequency traders on how the code hose the SEC and more.  </p> <p>Without data base rules 101 with identifying who the sellers are and what kind of data they sell, look for yet one more sinker here and a lot of wasted time once again as we have seen this so many times at both state and federal levels.  In addition we do not have enough trained people who know how to work with flawed data and they frigging believe everything on that computer screen put in front of them and often add the wrong type of context to their findings as well, so bottom line, you’re screwed again.   BD  </p> <p> <hr />Four U.S. senators have resurrected legislation that would allow consumers to see and correct personal information held by data brokers and tell those businesses to stop sharing or selling it for marketing purposes.</p> <p>The Data Broker Accountability and Transparency Act, introduced by four Democratic senators Thursday, also would require the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to craft rules for a centralized website for consumers to view a list of data brokers covered by the bill.</p> <p>Data brokers collect personal information about consumers, often without their knowledge, and resell it to other businesses.</p> <p>The bill is needed because data brokers are a “shadow industry of surreptitious data collection that has amassed covert dossiers on hundreds of millions of Americans,” Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “Data brokers seem to believe that there is no such thing as privacy.”</p> <p><a href="http://www.pcworld.com/article/2893672/lawmakers-target-data-brokers-in-privacy-bill.html">http://www.pcworld.com/article/2893672/lawmakers-target-data-brokers-in-privacy-bill.html</a></p>

Senators Create a Bill to Go After the Data Brokers Selling Our Personal Data But It Doesn’t Go Far Enough-Tons of Companies And Banks Are Also Selling Our Data and Repackaging Information About Us…

If you read my blog often enough then you know I am the accidental privacy advocate around here.  I have had my own issues and the last one ...

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Zoeticx Care Connect Update–Interoperating Medical Records Using Middleware As No HIE Connection is Required-And A Bonus for Patients With One Time Secure Token Identification To Give Access Permission

<p>Than, the CEO of Zoeticx has created a new video to give us some updates on what’s going on at Zoeticx.<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="181" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-BXzcsNBzGAg/VPiq_XuFTNI/AAAAAAABMA8/O9lC8f0DCT0/image%25255B21%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="284" />  For the demonstration he’s using an Allscripts demo and if you visit the Allscripts store you can find Zoeticx as a “certified” application.  I might want to add here that Than has had exposure and experience on multi levels with his background both at Borland and at BEA Software, which produced the Aqua Logic server which was sold to Oracle a few years ago and is  now the famous Weblogic server that many use every day with Oracle.</p> <p>the Zoeticx platform does confuse folks at time because it’s new and many have not seen engineering that allows medical records to interop “on the fly” if you will without the use of an HIE.  It does exist and Zoeticx is also flexible enough to be a Federated HIE platform that can also make use of an HIE as a data source so you get the best of both worlds.  When you stop and think about all the hacking that’s going on today, HIEs are just yet one more big target sitting out there for breaches, if you will, so “on the fly” interops gives you another solution with security.  When I mention “security” here, it’s like a phone call, live while the session is on going, and then dead (like a phone call hang up) when done.  I think this would appeal to many as we all know that the odds go down a bit when you don’t have a constant “live” connection.  Some HIEs use pointers as well and kill a constant connection too so there’s that side of it.  As a patient if you don’t understand how your medical records are shared, use the link below for a good explanation with videos on how this works. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/how-to-request-all-medical-records-that.html">How To Request All Medical Records That Have Been Exchanged With an HIE–Maybe Yes and Maybe No, But New Engineering for Medical Record Sharing Is On the Way For Better Privacy, Care and Actionable Use For Providers</a></h5> <p>Below is a recent video that gives some really good visuals on how some of the Care Connect features work.  Again keep in mind Than <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="148" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-8ZjG-CJ2VrA/VPirAAQxxCI/AAAAAAABMBE/s9Jpkt6krzw/image%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="206" />is an engineer and thinks like one, so you may have to watch this a couple of times to pick up on everything.  I used to  be guilty of that myself when I did demos too:)  The real deal here is not having a “split screen” to view with the sources of data all under one interface on the IPAD, which is nice and I’m sure doctors will appreciate this by all means.  </p> <p>The Zoeticx platform sits on top of EHRs so the medical record programs are not going anywhere but the platform allows the use of the data in a much better actionable process.  This is what we want to provide good care.  In the second half of the video is where you see the “token” authentication that patients can use to give doctors permission to access their records.  In addition, I should also say this is not stored on the phone but rather on the Zoeticx server so no HIPAA issues there and it uses the “fingerprint” from the IPhone.  </p> <p><iframe style="height: 277px; width: 492px" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cr9oAUaU_6Y" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>In addition, Than just informed me that they have now built an API for Athena Health medical records.  <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="265" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-BLTLc6EGcII/VPirAxWBwPI/AAAAAAABMBM/Rgjpe43t830/image%25255B13%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="218" />If you remember just a few weeks ago, <a href="http://geekdoctor.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-athenahealthbidmc-collaboration.html">Dr. Halamka gave their “home grown” medical records program to Athena</a> for further development after being in house for years at Harvard, short quote below from the doctor’s blog. </p> <p><em>“Over the next 5 years at BIDMC, we will select the best products and best services that meet the needs of our highly diverse network.   athenahealth products will be piloted in outpatient and inpatient locations.”</em></p> <p>If you want a little more history on the development and details of the platform, here’s a prior post I made a short while back that focuses on “actionable” information and risk management.   </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/zoeticxehr-agnostic-clarity-healthcare.html">Zoeticx–EHR Agnostic Clarity Healthcare Platform, An HIE Requiring No Data Warehousing For Interoperability, Answers The Call for Less Disruption With Actionable Medical Information Flow</a></h5> <p>This is actually pretty slick using the Apple one time token authentication as you may or may not have read, the token is good for access one time only so again that helps in keeping hackers out of the system.  </p> <p>Again the Zoeticx Interoperation platform is agnostic and can connect any medical records system with an API built gateway.  Currently they have an API built for Epic, Allscripts of course, a generic JSON (can be used with DOD/VA for example) and now Athena Health as mentioned above.  Again with all the data breaches and expense of HIE facilities which are yet another big hacker target, I think interoperating “on the fly” makes sense and sure there would need to be a network of Zoeticx servers installed, but you can do quite a few of them compared to the cost and upkeep of one HIE facility.  In California both Blue Cross and Blue Shield sunk around $100 million into a state wide HIE, and right now with the Anthem breach, we have the Consumer Watchdog advising patients “wait a minute” and let’s ask for some additional security questions.  Even before the breach I had my reservations as well.  </p> <p><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/09/health-insurance-business-is-driving.html">Insurers seem to be driving themselves off the cliff these days</a> with too much “non relevant” data when it comes to paying claims it seems, like buying up all our credit card transactions for one.  Claim data is good and tells a lot but it’s not as good as clinical data and you always have this<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="207" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-eAri7-L-QDQ/VPirB2fMjPI/AAAAAAABMBU/2umBEAhwz_Q/image%25255B17%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="307" /> debate it seems with doctors and insurers.  Claim data can be changed in context at times just to get it paid and you miss the real clinical details.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/anthem-blue-cross-blue-shield-of.html">Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield of California Going to Create “Yet Another Big Data Base of Patient Medical Records” - Be Ready for Premiums to Go Up As Health IT Eats Up the Healthcare System</a></h5> <p>I know we all have standards and HL7 and the new up and coming FHIR are important as the EMRs need this; however when you use a platform like Zoeticx to interop, being the EMRs have the standards built in, the platform can bring all the data together.  There’s a lot of debates going on out there on Health IT for sure and some outside the industry don’t understand the complexities that make healthcare different for sure.  When you talk about the importance of accuracy, medical records standards are at the top as “it’s all about us”.  There are the CCR and other formats that produce basically a continuity of care record which pretty much has been used for giving to patients and in some instances to export and import basic patient medical record information.  This is where there has been some snags with the mappings with some vendors and it’s not an easy job by all means.  </p> <p>Again using a platform like Zoeticx can get rid of some of this rhetoric with interoperating.<strong>  I keep reading about “punishing” the EMRs that don’t interoperate and I just can’t get my head around that political agenda at all and think it’s kind of stupid in the long run.</strong>  Now if you have platforms, be it Zoeticx or another one to where the EMR vendors refuse to create a gateway, now you have “real” folks resisting and not the fairly tale version we seem to keep hearing circulating around Washington DC.  Every time I read something on that topic I just start thinking about how Congress really needs to fund and use that Office of Technology Assessment so we don’t get the tech BS in there making a mess of things too, you  think? </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/big-clinical-data-registries-next-why.html">Big Clinical Data Registries Next? Why Doesn’t Congress restore the Office of Technology Assessment? More Proof that It’s Needed As This Is Yet One More Complex IT Project That Will Not Contribute Good Care, Just An IT Expenditure With a Lot of Quantitated Justifications Tossed In</a></h5> <p>In addition in the archives here at the Quack, Zoeticx had created their own unofficial challenge to the ONC on their interop timeline.  <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="182" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-jW-8YtCmVxI/VPirCwR4QZI/AAAAAAABMBc/JUAjllMj0mk/image%25255B25%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="301" />As I understand it, the ONC has had a fairly recent demonstration of the Zoeticx platform and I think it was positive overall too.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/07/zoeticx-clarity-server-middleware-hie.html">Zoeticx Clarity Server - Middleware HIE Will Save Millions Maybe Billions With HIE And Has 3-6 Year ONC Compatible Time Line, Works Using APIs, Web Apps Where Nobody Has to Swap Out Their EHR…</a></h5> <p>So again as hackers are driving a lot of decisions today, perhaps the interops of medical records “on the fly” might have a real place soon as at some point how many more HIEs can we build and afford?  Sure there will always be some but it’s getting expensive and they are great targets for hackers so maybe it’s time to shift our thinking a little bit on how the future of interoperating medical records is going to take place?  I’m sure I’m not the only one pondering this question as well and I still do see the Zoeticx platform as a valuable answer, again going JSON to JSON, which works with HL7 and FHIR to interop medical records and most importantly give the doctors the data they need to provide good care without a lot of hassle.  </p> <p>It’s a win-win for patients too as this type of interoperation also assures them that their records never leave their “home domicile” either whether it’s the doctor’s office or the hospital, they all go home after the interop session.  For doctors that would seem to be an easy explanation on record sharing it seems to me.  They never leave home and just take a short vacations with a lot of privacy:) BD</p>

Zoeticx Care Connect Update–Interoperating Medical Records Using Middleware As No HIE Connection is Required-And A Bonus for Patients With One Time Secure Token Identification To Give Access Permission

Than, the CEO of Zoeticx has created a new video to give us some updates on what’s going on at Zoeticx.   For the demonstration he’s using a...

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It’s Time To Look At Some of the Proprietary Code Running in the US–Too Many Companies and Banks Are Playing “Techno-God” Saying “Trust Me” With the Numbers and Stats…

<p>Well somebody had to say it and I know I’m not alone and it is not only healthcare but the financial markets as well.  How much have we read about high frequency trading and how they “rig” everything..tons of it and Michael Lewis even wrote a book.  Not all proprietary code is bad but there’s enough criminal type activity going on out there with the ones who are.  What a great game they have going as their <img align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-fpaB8yOE0io/USv18tNlXUI/AAAAAAABFxM/25MkrAmeTq8/AlgoFairy1%25255B11%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" />code is compiled and nobody ever gets to see it.  That’s how software works.  We’re a far cry from where software began to increase efficiencies, which was the purpose to help us be more efficient.  Now it’s just a game of who’s code can outdo someone else’s code.  </p> <p>That’s not the way it’ supposed to work out there.  Some algorithms are crossing the line and are becoming a menace to society as well.  This really sucks and until someone says something, nothing changes.  I’m tired of reading about the folks in DC not liking this or not liking that and picking on each other as this does nothing.  A while back I made a post saying “somebody needs to start calling foul” on some of this.  Don’t get me wrong, I like technology that helps me and makes me more efficient but too many are crossing that line and becoming “Techno-Gods” with their so called “algorithms”.  Like most I think I do a good job in pretty much telling the difference, after all I used to be a developer and wrote enough code and it’s like anything else in life, you can do the right thing or you can cheat.  We have too many cheaters out there today.  Everything does not have value.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/somebody-needs-to-start-calling-foul-on.html">Somebody Needs to Start Calling “Foul” On Proprietary Predictive Algorithms When They Cannot Be Replicated For Accuracy As This Accelerates Inequality and Promotes Even More Data Selling For Profit</a></h5> <p>Software builds on itself and thus we have this complex world of algorithms that most are finding hard to navigate.  If it keeps going without removing the stuff that’s not helping us, everything will eventually come to a stop.  Nobody knows what to do with it anymore, or they cheat and write some study with some off the all inflated P-Value that makes a case for their cheating code.  We see this all the time with studies and abstracts that are recalled.  Somebody decides so go off the deep end with their model and the correlations become so spurious that nothing makes sense. <img align="right" src="https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRp9TBlvWqtr16ku9oa-uGY_yLITLV9hYmtozmPi5XdbJ5RW7Sm" style="float: right; display: inline" /> I’m not that smart but I see this out there and why isn’t anyone else speaking up?  Actually over two years ago I warned about this impact on consumers before it really got out of hand.  Maybe because  I’m not making any money from risk fiddled models or algorithms is the reason?</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/11/big-dataanalytics-if-used-out-of.html">Big Data/Analytics If Used Out of Context and Without True Values Stand To Be A Huge Discriminatory Practice Against Consumers–More Honest Data Scientists Needed to Formulate Accuracy/Value To Keep Algo Duping For Profit Out of the Game</a></h5> <p>Here’s a good example of what I am talking about and there’s lots more like it but who is giving FICO the authority to use their proprietary code to be the Techno-Gods with their predictive scoring on who’s going to take their meds?  They say all they need is a name and an address on a person <a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/"><img align="right" border="0" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-6HDDm04lOwA/Ts0zq-EuFHI/AAAAAAAA4d8/nMT-KL0JEDY/image_thumb%25255B12%25255D.png?imgmax=172" 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" /></a>and they can rip up a score between zero and 500 to create a score on anyone.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/06/fico-medication-adherence-scoring.html">FICO Medication Adherence Scoring Should Be Banned As It’s Quantitated Justifications for Profit That Hurts US Consumers Using Proprietary Algorithms That Cannot Be Replicated For Accuracy or Audited</a></h5> <p>Again, anymore with some of what we are seeing today, things have changed out there and you can be code hosed and not know it at all, just by buying in to the numbers that are given to you.  A long time ago a sales manager told me “Barbara, just throw numbers at them, even if you have to make them up and you’ll get your sale”…and those words ring loud and clear today except we have a ton of technologies that do it by the algorithms.  If some of this has perked some interest, head on over to the <a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/">Killer Algorithms page</a> and watch some videos from folks a lot smarter than me…and video #1 “Context is Everything” sets the tone for you.  BD  </p>

It’s Time To Look At Some of the Proprietary Code Running in the US–Too Many Companies and Banks Are Playing “Techno-God” Saying “Trust Me” With the Numbers and Stats…

Well somebody had to say it and I know I’m not alone and it is not only healthcare but the financial markets as well.  How much have we read...

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Colon Cancer Screening Without the Colonoscopy–ColoGuard-Approved By Medicare And Some Insurers

<p>I did not know this existed until a doctor wrote to me today and said he thought the screening was much better than a <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="119" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-MKMWIWIyZgg/VPUP1Q3LT-I/AAAAAAABMAg/t0cT6V7YpMY/image%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="image" width="236" />colonoscopy.  That is his opinion and the test has been approved by the FDA as well.  Below the line I did a copy and paste of a few of the FAQs as information.</p> <p>One thing for sure, it’s not like preparing for a colonoscopy that’s for sure and who would miss that!  There are all types of disclaimers here as there has to be and again depending on results, etc. a full on colonoscopy could still be in the plan.  If you are a doctor and have not heard about the test, <a href="http://www.cologuardtest.com/hcp">follow the link here.</a>  </p> <p><em>Traditional Medicare (Part B) patients will not have any co-pays, deductible amounts, or co-insurance for Cologuard. </em></p> <p><em>Medicare Advantage patients may be subject to laboratory co-pays or co-insurance as determined by your plan. For details, please call your plan provider.</em></p> <p><strong><u>Here’s the drill on the test results..</u></strong></p> <p>What Does a Positive Result Mean? <br />• A Positive result means the test detected abnormal DNA and/or blood that could be <br />caused by precancer or cancer in the colon. <br />• The test can also have a Positive result that is incorrect (false positive). This means the <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="272" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Optmu7geubc/VPUP2LXtedI/AAAAAAABMAo/l7Z5jeaqhYg/image%25255B8%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="391" /> <br />test result is Positive, but no cancer or precancer is actually present. <br />• Any Positive result should be followed by a colonoscopy. <br />• Talk about your test result with your doctor to find out if additional testing is needed. <br />  <br />What Does a Negative Result Mean? <br />• A Negative test result means the test did not detect abnormal DNA and/or blood in the <br />sample. <br />• The test can also have a Negative result that is incorrect (false negative). This means the <br />test result missed a potential cancer or precancer. For that reason, it is recommended <br />that you schedule regular screenings. <br />• Talk to your doctor about your test result. Your doctor will recommend a screening <br />schedule that is best for you. <br />  <br />What Does No Result Obtained Mean? <br />• A “No Result Obtained” means the test was not able to provide a result. <br />• If this happens, your doctor will talk with you about</p> <p>Again this was a product that a doctor told me about today that he thought was worth a mention so I’m passing it on in case you were not aware.  Again you have to talk to your doctor to see if you are a candidate and I think most are unless you have some past history or some other bowel related issues or diseases.  BD </p> <p> <hr /></p> <p>In a study of 10,000 people of average risk for colon cancer, Cologuard found 92% of cancer. Cologuard was negative in 87% of patients without the disease.</p> <p>Cologuard must be ordered by your doctor.  Most commonly, you would discuss screening with your primary care physician, nurse practitioner, or other healthcare provider as part of a regular wellness appointment. Cologuard cannot be purchased over the counter.</p> <p>If your doctor would like to know more about Cologuard, please encourage him or her to contact us at 1-844-870-8870.</p> <p>Cologuard was approved by the FDA on August 11, 2014, and it is now available in all U.S. states and territories. As of October 9, 2014, Exact Sciences Laboratories is licensed in New York state.</p> <p>No. Cologuard does not provide information about inherited DNA changes. The DNA alterations and mutations used in Cologuard are acquired over time, not inherited, and can be associated with the presence of colon cancer and precancer.</p> <p>Cologuard is a screening test. Any positive result should be discussed with your doctor and followed by a diagnostic colonoscopy.</p> <p>After our lab receives the order from your doctor, we will call you to verify your address, then we will send the Collection Kit. It will include instructions for collecting a sample, a prepaid return label, and our phone number, in case you have any additional questions.</p> <p>Our lab needs to receive the sample within 72 hours following collection to ensure test accuracy, so we recommend shipping it within 24 hours of collection.</p> <p>A positive result means the test detected altered DNA and/or blood that could be caused by cancer or precancer in the colon or rectum. Any positive result should be followed by a diagnostic colonoscopy. </p> <p>The test can also have a positive result that is incorrect (false positive). This means the test result is positive, but no cancer or precancer is actually present. Talk about your test result with your doctor to find out if additional testing is needed.</p> <p>A negative result means the test did not detect altered DNA and/or blood that could be caused by cancer or precancer in the colon or rectum.</p> <p>The test can also have a negative result that is incorrect (false negative). This means the test result missed a potential cancer or precancer. For that reason, it is recommended that you schedule regular screenings. Your doctor may recommend an alternative screening method. Talk to your doctor about your test result. Your doctor will recommend a screening schedule that is best for you.</p> <p><a href="http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/377740/file-1661056668-pdf/patient_guide_09SEP2014.pdf?t=1411149449461&__hssc=76129098.40.1425345067829&__hstc=76129098.323cedcc0fefdfd341a93699c12b0306.1425336821236.1425336821236.1425345067829.2&hsCtaTracking=2f97e3f1-3a38-4278-867b-d19372282548%7Cca35a908-5b27-4804-8f9c-9e15d015a3cd">http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/377740/file-1661056668-pdf/patient_guide_09SEP2014.pdf?t=1411149449461&__hssc=76129098.40.1425345067829&__hstc=76129098.323cedcc0fefdfd341a93699c12b0306.1425336821236.1425336821236.1425345067829.2&hsCtaTracking=2f97e3f1-3a38-4278-867b-d19372282548%7Cca35a908-5b27-4804-8f9c-9e15d015a3cd</a></p>

Colon Cancer Screening Without the Colonoscopy–ColoGuard-Approved By Medicare And Some Insurers

I did not know this existed until a doctor wrote to me today and said he thought the screening was much better than a colonoscopy.  That is ...

Read more »