Leave It Up to Congress and the White House to Turn the SGR Repeal into a Media Circus…Daily Show..

<p>He calls it right again, Jon Stewart nails it and boy are we going to miss him.  Congress like he said is just dropping all over themselves <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="147" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GQ4L5Zl_nHU/VTfI4fPj_sI/AAAAAAABMOc/-Sh4Ey0Q78k/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="283">with congratulating each other for doing their job.  It just goes to show how far away from reality we really are today when we need a full on media showering on something that’s been an issue since 1997, Congress can’t model very well or do math as we know.</p> <p>Don’t miss the Boehner/Pelosi kiss on the cheek, give me a break, this is not the soap opera “General Hospital” but it sure plays out that way in the news today.</p> <p>As Stewart points out Congress fixes a law and a problem that they created for themselves (and us) and the President was go giddy he let a “child” film signing the bill, that’s is so funny.  We don’t give a crap about Boehner and Pelosi and what they did, there’s no trophy needed as Jon says.</p> <p>We come back to perception here, as he says “are we supposed to throw Congress a party for that”.  Sure it’s a welcome change by all means but damn, what a frigging circus in the media.  There is a negative side here in the fact that it continues to engage those CMS models with HHS mentored by United Healthcare over the years to let the HHS Secretary determine the quality measure reporting with doctors in the US, so duped again and the Sebelius Syndrome of whacked out perceptions on what humans can actually produce and meet the numbers that Congress “thinks” can be done, just<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="99" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CZeIhfkmZ0U/VTfI5ZhZWiI/AAAAAAABMOk/usrEeQ-vabM/image%25255B7%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="212"> another day in algorithmic profit making.</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>The reason they are really excited is that they were able to pass a bill which didn’t require much understanding of IT technology, and part two is where they really bungled things up.  Again the Sebelius Syndrome out there again with perceptions that are not realistic or attainable.  A famous Quant, Paul Wilmott said <em><u><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/04/it-will-never-be-100-bottles-of-beer.html">that 99.9 percent of financial models don’t involve the “real world” and that’s the problem, and we tend to be seeing the same thing in healthcare.</a></u></em>  Healthcare models with numerical structures and formulas, not that much different from financial models except instead of algos ripping around through stock exchanges, it’s humans being pushed to rip around through jillions of algorithmic formulas to get care when we are sick.  It’s much harder than the markets, as we are humans and not just a “piece of code” to whip around as we have a physical existence and are not virtual.  </p> <div style="width: 520px; background-color: #000000"> <div style="padding-bottom: 4px; padding-top: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px"><iframe height="288" src="http://media.mtvnservices.com/embed/mgid:arc:video:thedailyshow.com:37eb4a2d-d91c-4660-a74b-30f2ecd439f9" frameborder="0" width="460"></iframe> <p style="margin-bottom: 0px; font-size: 12px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; padding-bottom: 4px; text-align: left; padding-top: 4px; padding-left: 4px; margin-top: 4px; padding-right: 4px; background-color: #ffffff"><b><a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/">The Daily Show</a></b> <br>Get More: <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/full-episodes/">Daily Show Full Episodes</a>,<a href="http://www.facebook.com/thedailyshow">The Daily Show on Facebook</a>,<a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos">Daily Show Video Archive</a></p></div></div> <p>So how many bots covered this story?  Sure there were some as 60% of what you read today is written by bots…let’s add on that factor to the madness.  Read this as you might have to pay to read such soon.</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>In the meantime, watch this documentary on Silicon Valley and see how far apart our Government flunkies and the code and technology in Silicon Valley really are. run for the hills as this is scary as these folks just manipulate the hell out of the Hill.  It’s so painless and over the heads of Washington, they don’t even feel it but we do as consumers.  <strong>So after you watched the SGR Media Circus, tune in here and see what’s really taking place.  “We’re from California, we’re the future”…watch it.</strong>  <p><iframe style="height: 295px; width: 530px" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YQy0ZCx3UCY" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen></iframe> <p>We are as consumers under the <strong>Attack of the Killer Algorithms</strong> and if the news on the markets yesterday didn’t prove that, I don’t know how much more they need and the man arrested is not a lone wolf.  It’s hard to admit you’ve been code hosed and taken advantage of, but that’s what is going on.  Watch the videos at the Attack of the Killer Algorithms page and learn up, from folks smarter than me.  <p><em><u><a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/">Attack of the Killer Algorithms…</a></u></em> <p>Again, after you watch this second video, you’ll see how far apart our world of government and technology really are and they are not getting any closer.  BD</p>

Leave It Up to Congress and the White House to Turn the SGR Repeal into a Media Circus…Daily Show..

He calls it right again, Jon Stewart nails it and boy are we going to miss him.  Congress like he said is just dropping all over themselves ...

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With Lower Reimbursement from Insurers and Medicare, LabCorp To Allow Customers to To Go Online To Pay for And Schedule Tests Without a Visit to the Doctor, Looking for New Revenue Streams…

<p>We knew someday this would be coming and I would say obviously the tests are limited to those which a consumer can understand and are part of common blood work tests that are done every day.  The article mentions that years ago Quest tried the same thing and it<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="79" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-su55SiTv2MU/VTXkRd6v5LI/AAAAAAABMOI/eDBZq4ZpmR4/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" /> fizzled.  LabCorp is also the company who runs the tests for Twenty Three and Me, a Google company that does light weight genomic and ancestry testing for consumers. </p> <p>How this will take off remains to be seen.  Recently LabCorp made a fairly large acquisition of a company named Covance, a large molecular research and clinical trials company worldwide.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/labcorp-to-acquire-covance-for-61.html">Labcorp To Acquire Covance for $6.1 Billion Cash and Stock</a></h5> <h5><strong><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/02/labcorp-buys-covances-high-complexity.html">Labcorp Buys Covance’s High Complexity Genomic Laboratory In Seattle</a></strong></h5> <p>If you want to read the company privacy statement, you can <a href="https://www.labcorp.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/c1/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz9CP0os_hQV5NgQ09LYwMLD0tLA0_3MAsPdxcfYwMDM30_j_zcVP2CbEdFAL-Cfes!/dl2/d1/L2dQZyEvd0xNQUJKSUEvWUJweGx4dHhqeHJ3LzZfVUU0UzFJOTMwOEg5OTBJR1Y4SEdETDMwMDYvNl9RODZOUTJOMjA4MlU4MDIzRVJDMTRNMDBPNS82X1VFNFMxSTkzME9GVEEwSUtOUTlPUEgyNEQxLzZfUTg2TlEyTjIwODJVODAyM0VSQzE0TTAwNDIvNl9RODZOUTJOMjA4MlU4MDIzRVJDMTRNMDBDMw!!/">read it here</a> and see how much “sharing” is going on.  it will be interesting to see how this catches on and if they have more success than Quest did a few years ago.  In addition, the company will be looking for a drug store to collaborate with and there’s no mention of what the costs will be but in time I’m sure those will be shown as well.  More and more states are passing laws to allow consumers to get lab tests without a doctor’s prescription.  The company of course is facing some big competition from Theranos, a new lab company that charges 50% of what Medicare charges for blood tests and only requires a tiny drop of blood.  I’ve written about Theranos quite a bit here at the Quack and as they grow, this will get interesting to see what the consumer does.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/its-basic-human-right-for-individuals.html">“It’s A Basic Human Right for Individuals to Have Access-One Drop of Blood”Theranos CEO & Founder, Elizabeth Holmes TED Video</a></h5> <p>I don’t expect a big rush on this but there could be enough to put some money to the company bottom line.  BD </p> <strong> <p> <hr /></p> <p>NEW YORK</p> • Consumers will soon be able to bypass their doctors by going online to order cholesterol readings, thyroid tests and other bloodwork from the nation's biggest diagnostics company.</strong> <p>Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, which has about 20 locations in the St. Louis area, will let customers go online to pay for tests, visit a service center to get blood drawn, then view the results on the Web. The company has already been doing back-office lab work for a number of Internet firms that let people order up tests without a doctor.</p> <p>LabCorp's direct-to-consumer business will initially be run online. The company is exploring a partnership with a drugstore chain as well — an idea that rival Quest Diagnostics Inc. tried and scrapped. The company didn't say precisely which tests it will offer or how much it will charge. In some states, the law will still require consumers to get a doctor to order tests.</p> <p><a href="http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/labcorp-to-let-consumers-order-own-tests/article_22731fb1-f045-542c-9bc5-2563d7015333.html">http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/labcorp-to-let-consumers-order-own-tests/article_22731fb1-f045-542c-9bc5-2563d7015333.html</a></p>

With Lower Reimbursement from Insurers and Medicare, LabCorp To Allow Customers to To Go Online To Pay for And Schedule Tests Without a Visit to the Doctor, Looking for New Revenue Streams…

We knew someday this would be coming and I would say obviously the tests are limited to those which a consumer can understand and are part o...

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Mayo Clinic is the Latest to Outsource Revenue Cycling to Optum 360, A United Healthcare/Dignity Health Company Pursuing Hospital Contracts All Over the US For Profit…

<p>If you haven’t seen this way of outsourcing hospital revenue cycling and employees, here’s the latest from the Optum 360 group.  It’s a company owned by both Untied and Dignity Health with Optum/United Healthcare being the controlling party.  You could certainly assume this provides some revenue for <img align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-tijkSzKtJCo/UlyAMU3pkJI/AAAAAAABIIQ/Snjq2bIa4hg/image%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" />Dignity Healthcare and as they have recently been hit with employees suits stating their pension funds are not adequate.  So add on Optum 360 and bump a bunch of folks off the pension plan right?  That’s basically what has occurred as Optum 360 was rolled out through the Dignity Healthcare system of hospitals first. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/12/dignity-health-gets-temporary-reprieve.html">Dignity Health Gets a Temporary Reprieve on Pension Plan Lawsuit–Employees Claim As Being Under Funded</a></h5> <p>A judge just recently gave Dignity a bit of a reprieve on the pension issues, but it’s not over yet.  Optum itself without the 360 combined Dignity Health subsidiary has been at the center of revenue cycling for years and if I’m not mistaken, Cerner still licenses their software modules so every time a Cerner system is sold, there’s Licensing royalty payments to be made to Optum, one more way they make money and of course they own a few other subsidiaries in the medical records business as well.</p> <p>Dignity Health also has a big fine to pay so they are looking for revenue streams I could guess and this partnership company with Optum as they gain more hospital contacts to gain business with outsourcing revenue cycling to them should help their income.  Mayo is just the latest to outsource to Optum 360.  Employees are no longer employed by the hospitals and I could guess some get hired back.  On one of the job boards one employee commented about how their benefits plan under Optum 360 really sucked compared to what they had provided formerly by Dignity and said it was all about greed.  Here’s the link on the initial announcement of the company and a couple of former Medicare employees told me they about fell over<img align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-SY08Bt8wa40/UlyAOJSv2II/AAAAAAABIIo/Tg8ePmVDuL4/image%25255B27%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" /> seeing this.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/10/united-healthcare-adding-yet-one-more.html">United Healthcare Adding Yet One More Subsidiary to the Very Large Number of Subs They Already Own/Operate-Optum and Dignity Healthcare (A System Wide Cerner EHR Client) Form New Venture Called Optum 360–Subsidiary Watch</a></h5> <p>Dignity Health is already a partner in the Optum Labs group and I believe most of their hospitals do use Cerner medical records so some of the revenue cycling coding and software may already be in place.  </p> <p>You can watch the  <a href="http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/creating-a-sustainable-model-for-health-care/?utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=Socialflow"><em>CEO of Mayo doing somewhat of a solicitation for United Labs too in the Harvard Review</em></a><em>,</em> that’s where the data selling with Humedica rolled in there will take place, another subsidiary of the giant United conglomerate.  In addition this week there was also news about Optum/UHC buying a chain of urgent care centers and of course that gets rolled right in here to with Optum 360.  As a matter of fact if you visit the website of the new subsidiary, they want to talk to doctors who might want to sell their practices too so this subsidiary goes after the doctors while the Optum 360 subsidiary goes after the hospitals. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/04/optum-united-healthcare-buys-medexpress.html">Optum (United Healthcare) Buys MedExpress Urgent Care Business- 141 Full Service Clinics In 11 States–Company Advertises They Are In the Market to Buy Your MD Practice, As A “Too Big To Fail Insurer” Moves Forward With More Acquisitions</a></h5> <p>So this again is another cost cutting effort and revenue gaining proposition for Optum and is allowing huge additional market exposure.  Optum has already opened up 9 of their own urgent care centers in Texas as an example.  If you look at the job sites, you’ll even see “admitting clerks” as part of the job listings that Optum 360 is looking for.  In the OC where I am, United owns some of the biggest IPAs (doctors groups) so they used that power as well to cut payments to MDs and many of which through very complex contracts here in the southern California area of getting paid at rates less than Medicare, which doesn’t make them very happy.  Keep in mind too now that Medicare is also run by a former United Executive who got his start in life as a Goldman Sachs banker.  That’s doesn’t seem to make anyone feel very good does it?  </p> <p>United and Optum love complexities as that’s what helps make money for them so don’t look for the company to make anything any simpler for you the patient to deal with as it’s not on the agenda as the whole focus here is to shift more money over to the consumer to pay.  I might add that your premium payments with United and other insurers also go to fund stock buy backs as those cost money to facilitate as well.  Look at Walgreens as another example and their record $8 Billion dollar debt/bond issue they had last year to raise money, so they could also keep buying back their stock.  </p> <p>Here’s a little bit more about the Optum Labs operation at the link below, that makes money for their founding members such as Dignity, Mayo and of course Optum by selling data and allowing companies to use apps to research the medical records that hospitals like Mayo, Dignity, McClaren and more provide, your medical records with claim data tied in.  So far, in a couple years nothing earth shattering out of the labs as they all proclaimed the research would end up with some real life saving stuff, yet to be seen.  <strong>It’s more about making money from those who pay to use the data.</strong>  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/10/unitedhealthgroup-and-aarp-get-cozier.html">UnitedHealthGroup and AARP Get Cozier, AARP Still Gets Paid for Marketing Use of AARP Name As AARP Becomes an Optum Labs Data Selling Promoter Amidst Doctor Complaints Received Relative To United Firing of 5500 MDs–Subsidiary Watch</a></h5> <p><strong>Anyway it sounds like a bunch of Mayo folks are about to lose jobs and get rehired by Optum 360</strong> as they join the outsourcing revenue cycling company.  It is interesting on how Mayo’s participation will end up providing income for Dignity Healthcare, another company of hospitals in the west.  By the way, United has a subsidiary that helps device and drug companies get their products approved from the FDA too.  I thought this was kind of interesting after we read the news articles about how United is going to control strict authorization of C-Sections now.  They kind of walk both sides of the street here, you think? </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011/09/united-healthcare-optum-owns-consulting.html">United Healthcare (Optum) Owns A Consulting Firm for FDA Drug and Device Approvals, Clinical Trials–CanReg - Subsidiary Watch</a></h5> <p>Again, just look at any job market page and see what positions Optum 360 is advertising for and you’ll get the picture of what parts of the hospital revenue cycling and then maybe even more they are taking over.  They have to keep those infamous Ingenix fraud detection algorithms running too.  <img align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-9ifGIaOPcUg/Un2sDRQ0ZMI/AAAAAAABIi4/_yb0FA4o254/image%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" />Do pay attention to all the Quants that are being hired throughout United and other insurers as those are the folks now designing the insurance policies you buy too and you kind of wonder how many former bank and high frequency trader quants they are hiring as quants do change industries as their work is all math and models beyond just stock markets.  One more note worth a short mention, Optum wants to be your medical records consultant, integrator and more so pop that in here with the Optum 360 subsidiary and what are they leaving untouched?</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/11/united-healthcare-optum-insight.html">United Healthcare (Optum Insight Subsidiary) Wants To Be Your Allscripts, Epic And GE Centricity EHR Consulting Service Starting With Implementation And Beyond</a></h5> <p>So what is the behemoth not doing?  Here’s a couple links where you can view some very lengthy lists of subsidiaries as listed with the SEC for UnitedHeatlhGroup and United Healthcare.  Look now before the individual names go away as they are incorporating most all of them under the Untied or Optum name.   There’s even a listing for their tax haven company that has no officers in the mix.  BD  </p> <h5><a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/731766/000119312503075552/dex21.htm">http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/731766/000119312503075552/dex21.htm</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/731766/000119312510027229/dex211.htm">http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/731766/000119312510027229/dex211.htm</a></h5> <p> <hr />WAKEFIELD, Mass. & ROCHESTER, Minn., Apr 14, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Optum360 and Mayo Clinic announced today that they are partnering to develop new revenue management services capabilities aimed at improving patient experiences and satisfaction while reducing administrative costs for health care providers.</p> <p>Optum360 and Mayo Clinic will collaborate on enhancing and redesigning specific elements of the revenue cycle to increase efficiency while creating a convenient, accurate, transparent and personal experience for patients. A key focus is improving the interaction between the provider and payer by opening channels of communication early in the care process. The partnership includes a next-generation patient cost estimator, streamlining prior authorization/pre-certification, enhanced claims editing functions and administrative simplification of billing activities associated with pre-care packaged pricing.</p> <p><a href="http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mayo-clinic-and-optum360-partner-to-improve-experience-for-patients-2015-04-14">http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mayo-clinic-and-optum360-partner-to-improve-experience-for-patients-2015-04-14</a></p>

Mayo Clinic is the Latest to Outsource Revenue Cycling to Optum 360, A United Healthcare/Dignity Health Company Pursuing Hospital Contracts All Over the US For Profit…

If you haven’t seen this way of outsourcing hospital revenue cycling and employees, here’s the latest from the Optum 360 group.  It’s a comp...

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News Rigging Has Arrived! Astroturf and Manipulation of Media Messages-TED Video About “The Fake Grass Roots” Of Big Pharma and Other Campaigns That Fool and Fool Again…

<p>This is a great video and if you read at the Medical Quack, news rigging has been a somewhat frequent content. <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="187" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-gu1Kr2Z4Dkk/VS8t4e1lzVI/AAAAAAABMNs/ZfeYqeXY6cg/image%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="146" /> To a degree, everyone is really becoming more skeptical of what’s in the news.  Here’s a post from a couple of years ago, from Quant Cathy O’Neill, “On Being a Skeptic”.  Who knows better than those who model as once it’s designed you have to use the darn thing, right?  Of course you do.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/10/on-being-data-skeptic-modelers-have.html">“On Being a Data Skeptic- Modelers Have A Bigger Responsibility Now Than Ever Before”–A Must Read Essay, Start “Sniffing the Data”…</a></h5> <p>Who are these experts on the web?  Sharyl Attkisson does a good job on telling you how it all works and how little truth there can be out there.  She brings up all the pharma companies using Twitter and Facebook accounts set up to steer your interest.  These are “fake grass roots” movements.  </p> <p>She further goes on to talk about how those selling astroturf don’t like it if you go against what they are saying and that’s the truth if I ever heard it.  God forbid you come out and say something against the fake astroturf on “wearables”…try it sometimes and see what happens as it’s almost comical in nature too.  Just put on your tough skin and watch the fire works and enjoy.  </p> <p>Throwing experts into the mix really confuses a lot of issues and who are they anyway?  Here’s another TED video that addresses that topic as we find they may not really exist and might be astroturfing instead.  Thank goodness we do still have some quality journalists out there as well and if you read the news often enough, well you end up being able to pick them out amongst the astro turfers and the click baiters who only want ad revenue anyway.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2011/02/relying-on-experts-when-they-may-not.html">Relying on Experts When They May Not Exist–Many Intelligent and Smart People But Do We Have Misconceived Paradigms-TED</a></h5> <p>Listen to what’s going on with Wikipedia.  One man was not considered a reputable expert on himself.  The algos of the peer news would not let it happen.  I think like me you might be able to recognize the Twitter and Facebook paid professionals drug companies hire.  Also listen to how the drug companies manipulate study news and Google Search on top of that!  When you get done here, one more video and it’s #1 in the footer of this page “Context is Everything” from 3 years ago, Professor Siefe will explain how you are duped with math, which also enables further attacks of the Killer Algorithms.  BD  </p> <p><iframe height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-bYAQ-ZZtEU" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>So, how about when the astroturfers employ bots to react and play to the sounds of the bots on the SIP which sends news to the stock exchanges…oh yes..it becomes a bot to bot world as the journobots can read how the bots react to the news in the news feed and then quickly write up and public an article that can indeed sway stock investors in a very short time, like a few minutes or seconds.  Do you want to pay for this type of news too is the next question…20 cents to read an article written by a bot?  Read the link below for more on that topic as the big media papers have stated they are “in” with this new start up that plans to do exactly that.</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>Here’s a video that shows how jounobots do their work and this is what you get today.  By the way, this video was done n 2007, so jounobots have been around for a while.  BD  </p> <p><iframe style="height: 315px; width: 570px" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SkS5PkHQphY" frameborder="0" width="420" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU&feature=youtu.be">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU&feature=youtu.be</a></p>

News Rigging Has Arrived! Astroturf and Manipulation of Media Messages-TED Video About “The Fake Grass Roots” Of Big Pharma and Other Campaigns That Fool and Fool Again…

This is a great video and if you read at the Medical Quack, news rigging has been a somewhat frequent content. To a degree, everyone is rea...

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Optum (United Healthcare) Buys MedExpress Urgent Care Business- 141 Full Service Clinics In 11 States–Company Advertises They Are In the Market to Buy Your MD Practice, As A “Too Big To Fail Insurer” Moves Forward With More Acquisitions

<p>No word on how long before “rebranding” may take place with the name yet.  Optum has already been in this business to a small<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="128" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-Vv6LeCV5sf0/VStgMqliwSI/AAAAAAABMNQ/mwxWYMPjqtU/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="209" /> degree in Texas and I believe one in Kansas so far.  The link below tells you what’s going on there and I think they are up to nine clinics now.  MedExpress plans on opening 25 more clinics so now I guess they too will be “Optum” clinics.   </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/united-healthcare-optum-opens-three.html">United Healthcare (Optum) Opens Three More Urgent Care Clinics In Houston</a></h5> <p>Here was another recent purchase for the “too big to fail insurer”.  Yes I said that as United with health insurance is like the banks getting “too big” and if you have not looked at their truckloads of subsidiaries, where all the action takes place, do it.  It was interesting the FTC got involved with the medical records business with stating there was not enough competitions and United is following right down that path.  A week ago, there was this acquisition with the Catamaran Pharmacy Benefit Management company.  Hardly anyone mentioned the class action law suit filed against Catamaran by independent physicians across the US.  In Brazil, United owns 90% of the biggest HMO in that country and also includes managing hospitals as the laws are different there.   </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2015/03/united-healthcare-buys-catamaran.html">United Healthcare Buys Catamaran Pharmacy Benefit Manager Just As the PBM Gets Hit With A Class Action Lawsuit For Low Balling Pharmacy Reimbursements..And More Patient Data to Sell and Analyze For Profit</a></h5> <p>By the way, on electronic medical records, Optum wants part of that business too as the implementation and integrator/consultant for major medical records systems too.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/11/united-healthcare-optum-insight.html">United Healthcare (OptumInsight Subsidiary) Wants To Be Your Allscripts, Epic And GE Centricity EHR Consulting Service Starting With Implementation And Beyond</a></h5> <p>It was also in the news that Whole Foods is preparing to join the circus with retail clinics with having professionals available at the stores to see minor conditions and actually sounded like they were going to be more of a counselor.  MedExpress also runs an open advertisement on their site that they are willing to talk with doctors about buying their practices too, so a little competition you could say with hospitals who are already buying MD practices like they are going out of style.  In a recent documentary, the NHS in the UK does not appear to be very happy with United’s “take over and sell off” over there, and again all are asleep at the wheel here while one company grows in plain site and government agencies like the FTC spend their time on other less significant areas of lack of competition.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-take-over-and-sell-off-of-nhsby.html">The Take Over and Sell Off of the NHS–By Companies from the United States, United Healthcare and Others - A Documentary</a></h5> <p><a href="http://medexpress.com/about-us/newsroom.aspx">From the Website…</a></p> <p><em>“MedExpress Urgent Care is the national leader in urgent care delivery, providing high-quality, fast and affordable care to those seeking medical treatment for illness and injury. MedExpress operates multiple full-service, walk-in urgent care facilities in </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/arkansas.aspx"><em>Arkansas</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/delaware.aspx"><em>Delaware</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/florida.aspx"><em>Florida</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/indiana.aspx"><em>Indiana</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/maryland.aspx"><em>Maryland</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/michigan.aspx"><em>Michigan</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/new-jersey.aspx"><em>New Jersey</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/pennsylvania.aspx"><em>Pennsylvania</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/tennessee.aspx"><em>Tennessee</em></a><em>, </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/virginia.aspx"><em>Virginia</em></a><em> and </em><a href="http://medexpress.com/local-centers/west-virginia.aspx"><em>West Virginia</em></a><em>. MedExpress centers are open 12 hours per day, 7 days per week, and always have a full medical team on site. Founded in 2001, MedExpress has administrative offices in Morgantown, West Virginia, and Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.”</em></p> <p> <hr />WAKEFIELD, Mass. & MORGANTOWN, W. Va.--(<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/">BUSINESS WIRE</a>)--Optum, a leading health services company, announced it is joining with MedExpress, a national leader in high-quality, affordable walk-in care. Terms of the acquisition agreement were not disclosed.</p> <p>MedExpress and Optum share a focus on expanding access to high-quality, cost-effective<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="56" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Z54-7eje28M/VStgNqxdj_I/AAAAAAABMNY/313H2ik_Ldc/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="221" /> health care services in communities nationwide. The combination serves the growing demand among consumers, health systems, employers and health plans for more convenient, lower-cost services on an unscheduled basis for a comprehensive scope of outpatient health care needs.</p> <p>MedExpress currently operates 141 full-service neighborhood medical centers in 11 states, and plans to accelerate its expansion by opening 25 to 30 additional centers in 2015 in both existing and new states.</p> <p>The combination will create opportunities to integrate Optum care management and clinical programs with MedExpress’ services, simplifying patient access to health resources and treatment options in their community.</p> <p><a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150408006549/en/Optum-MedExpress-Join-Serve-Consumer-Health-Care#.VStYEFNtfEQ">http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150408006549/en/Optum-MedExpress-Join-Serve-Consumer-Health-Care#.VStYEFNtfEQ</a></p>

Optum (United Healthcare) Buys MedExpress Urgent Care Business- 141 Full Service Clinics In 11 States–Company Advertises They Are In the Market to Buy Your MD Practice, As A “Too Big To Fail Insurer” Moves Forward With More Acquisitions

No word on how long before “rebranding” may take place with the name yet.  Optum has already been in this business to a small degree in Tex...

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Pioneering Clinical Trials Using Man Made DNA to Battle Cancer, Ebola, Flue and HIV

<p>This is exciting stuff as scientists have now been able to create DNA strands that can mimic diseases and the <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="100" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-9dTwCmR0q3M/VStVgKLbU9I/AAAAAAABMNA/j2iY0w3XuRA/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" />clinical trials involved injecting them into patients  and that process eliminates the disease threat.  A company by the name of Inovio has begun clinical trials with humans and the first disease on the attack list is cervical cancer.  So far they have been able to cure pre-cancerous lesions.  </p> <p>Below is an introduction video that talks about what Inovio does and their methodologies to create vaccines that work by stimulating the body’s own immune system.  BD  </p> <p><iframe style="height: 286px; width: 503px" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rghAsCJiQtQ?rel=0" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <hr />Pioneering new treatments for flu, ebola and cancer are being developed by scientists using man-made DNA. <p>Experts have worked out how to create strands of artificial DNA, each mimicking a different killer disease, and inject them into patients.</p> <p>The idea is that the patients' immune systems will then be able to recognize the threats and eliminate them.</p> <p>Inovio, one of the companies behind the technique, has begun trials in humans, after strong results in the lab.</p> <p>The American company is using the method to attack flu, ebola and certain types of cancer – as well as HIV and hepatitis.</p> <p>Experts have already started trials on female patients to see if they can stop them developing cervical cancer. </p> <p>Dr Joseph Kim, Inovio's chief executive, said: 'We are able to clear pre-cancerous lesions which, left untreated, can turn into full-blown cervical cancer.'</p> <p><a href="http://www.bostonnewstime.com/regional/99274-pioneering-trials-using-man-made-dna-begin-in-battle-against-cancer,-ebola,-flu-and-hiv-with-scientists-saying-the-treatment-could-be-the-key-to-defeating-them.html">http://www.bostonnewstime.com/regional/99274-pioneering-trials-using-man-made-dna-begin-in-battle-against-cancer,-ebola,-flu-and-hiv-with-scientists-saying-the-treatment-could-be-the-key-to-defeating-them.html</a></p>

Pioneering Clinical Trials Using Man Made DNA to Battle Cancer, Ebola, Flue and HIV

This is exciting stuff as scientists have now been able to create DNA strands that can mimic diseases and the clinical trials involved injec...

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Because They Lied About Their Code Being Done With Eclipsys EMR Software Merger, Allscripts Agrees to Pay A $10 Million Dollar Fine To Settle Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit..

<p>This is some good soap opera material here.  When this all hit, I wrote that “they lied about their code” and that turned out to be the case, it was not done.  I have a couple analysts call me and they were confused and chatted with me.  “What do you mean the code was not done, they had a deadline to meet”…and to that I say “LOL”.  You can read my original blog post below.  This was about the same time that Intuit thought they could “shove developers into a room until they got their code right”.  As a former developer, when I hear stories as such my head just rolls with people not understanding that writing code does not work that way, you can’t push it.  I know, I’ve been there and done that and you can’t push any faster as it has to be done correctly.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/05/class-action-lawsuit-filed-against.html"><strong>Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Allscripts For Misleading Investors With Merging Data Systems–Too Much Code and Not Enough Time – Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 30</strong></a></h5> <p>You know that’s where the value comes with in with CEOs of companies that write or did write code, like Bill Gates, <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="125" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-cfaoTJG6Sao/VSHeDQvp2DI/AAAAAAABMMo/QkmkNMwMkfc/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="284" />Larry Ellison and more.  They know and when they sound warnings, time to listen and ditch the idiotic perceptions painted by the media about coding being s simple task and how developers can meet deadlines set by CEOs and Sales People.  The problem was amplified as they sold systems based on systems that were not done.  You can listen to some of the early days of Oracle and Larry Ellison will tell you, they did that but that was back in the early days when things were not to the level of complexities we have today.  So Allcripts tried and it cost the CEO his job and now $10 million.  CEOs who don’t have actual on hands experience, even just a little make rotten CEOs at times as they don’t get it.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/04/allscripts-cfo-resigns-along-with-few.html">Allscripts CFO Resigns Along With A Few Other Key Individuals, Board Fires Chairman–1st Quarter Had Lower Sales And Net Earnings Down–Long Haul to Get Software Technologies Merged So They Work</a></h5> <p>So in a short amount of time, Allscripts had to ask Microsoft for help since Eclipsys was written with their technologies.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/08/allscripts-turns-to-microsoft-to-expand.html">Allscripts Turns to Microsoft To Expand Their Application Development</a></h5> <p>Thins for a while were pretty grim to even where they were considering a sale.  In due time when folks finally decided to look at the real world, it was pretty apparent “they lied” about their code being done.  Now if this does not turn you into a skeptic on some of what you read today about software, I don’t know what would.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/11/allscripts-states-they-are-considering.html">Allscripts States They Are Considering Sale to Third Party–Follow the Code Technologies To Think About Caradigm As An Educated Speculation Being A Potential Match</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/12/allscripts-ousts-ceo-glen-tullman-and.html"><strong>Allscripts Ousts CEO Glen Tullman and Lee Shapiro, President, Appoints Board Member To Take Over</strong></a></h5> <p>Then to distract and draw attention away from their lies about the integration of both software platforms, they turn around and sue NYC health, plus at the time I’m sure money was in the forefront as well.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/12/allscripts-sues-nyc-health-and-hospital.html"><strong>Allscripts Sues NYC Health and Hospital System Over Contract Award to Epic - EHR Vendor Playing the Same Game as Health Insurance Companies With Lawsuits</strong></a></h5> <p>Here’s one more with another “old” class action lawsuit with their original software which they bought from Mysis, who’s now no longer in the medical record business and went into producing banking software.  Don’t you just love it:) </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/01/allscripts-has-more-issues-with-class.html"><strong>Allscripts Has More Issues With a Class Action Lawsuit Filed in Florida Claiming MyWay EMR Product Non Performance and Large Expenditures Expenditures</strong></a></h5> <p>Last but not least, speaking of code, let’s just jab a little Healthcare. Gov in here and guess what they did?  We all remember it very well but in short, Sebelius and company pulled an Allscripts wouldn’t you say?  See this all comes back to consumers not understanding and journalists not reporting correctly as to what’s really happening out there.  In the case of Allscripts I think I was the lone soul that jumped out there and said they lied and “code’s not done”.  Again, this whacked out perceptions on how computer coding and programming was topped by HHS as we all watched.  I call these public appearances and awful and silly public exposures as “The Sebelius Syndrome” as she was so visible and techs all across the US would just about roll all over themselves when she spoke with her whacked out perceptions that were not true.  Sure she could try to fool the public but you can’t fool the people in the business.  </p> <p>So there was the sequel to the Allscripts lie…we had the even bigger lie and whacked out perceptions and stories from HHS:)  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/11/hhscms-pulls-allscripts-mistakecodes.html">HHS/CMS Pulls An “Allscripts” Mistake–”Code’s Not Done With Healthcare.Gov”…And Did Anyone Look at the Oracle and Microsoft “Turnkey” State Health Insurance Platforms…There’s a Time and Place for Open Source And The Insurance Exchanges Are Not It Right Now..</a></h5> <p>Here’s one of my back articles on the “Sebelius Syndrome” if you want to check it out below.  There’s more than just her afflicted with this which would probably be about 95% of Congress and a good chunk of the White House too.  I caught the White House using “junk science” numbers nobody could predict on one of their emails and sad but when the whacked out folks try to dazzle people with numbers that are not even feasible, it comes back to haunt them and in the long run it’s even worse.  <strong>So let’s see, you think some high frequency coders, banks and software developers might be doing some lying out there?  Of course not all are not this ruthless or in the case of HHS, that dumb, but it is out there amongst those who lean towards being a lot more honest and not fiddling with risk.</strong>  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/04/markets-are-not-rigged-spoken-like-true.html">“Markets Are Not Rigged” Spoken Like A True Data Mechanics Novice, It’s Like Sebelius at HHS All Over Again, Looking For Algo Fairies at The SEC, One More Government Agency Wrapped Up in “The Grays”…</a></h5> <p><strong><em>By the way, read the two paragraphs below…  who did Allscripts lie to for a big part of this?  Pension Funds…be a skeptic when you need to be one.  BD</em></strong> </p> <p> <hr />Law360, New York (April 03, 2015, 2:33 PM ET) -- Allscripts Healthcare Solutions Inc. has agreed to pay nearly $10 million to end a proposed shareholder class action that alleges the health care information technology company hid problems sparked by a 2010 merger with Eclipsys Corp., according to documents filed Thursday. <br />Lead plaintiffs the Government of Bermuda Contributory and Public Service Superannuation Pension Plans and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 38 Pension Fund asked an Illinois federal judge for preliminary approval of the deal.</p> <p><a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/639102/allscripts-to-pay-10m-to-end-investor-suit-over-merger-woes">http://www.law360.com/articles/639102/allscripts-to-pay-10m-to-end-investor-suit-over-merger-woes</a></p>

Because They Lied About Their Code Being Done With Eclipsys EMR Software Merger, Allscripts Agrees to Pay A $10 Million Dollar Fine To Settle Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit..

This is some good soap opera material here.  When this all hit, I wrote that “they lied about their code” and that turned out to be the case...

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“RX-The Quiet Revolution”–Documentary Focuses on a Diverse Group of Doctors and Healthcare Professionals Transforming Medical Care and Putting the Patient at the Center of Their Practice…

<p>This a long documentary, 90 minutes but well worth watching.  Below the line you can read what the film is all about.  Actually you get to see some of the values we liked about Dr. Welby making a come back, combined with using modern day technology in a way where it fits.  House calls are back and there’s new cultures of respect coming back.  </p> <p>It’s very interesting to see the four different segments on what’s happening and what the doctors are doing.  </p> <p><iframe height="346" marginheight="0" src="http://video.pbs.org/viralplayer/2365443837?chapter=1" frameborder="0" width="460" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" seamless="seamless"></iframe></p> <p>There’s every day “real” patients in the video who have some tough chronic issues.  They are really focusing on getting the patient involved in their care and using some of the old tactics we saw with Dr. Welby along with modern technologies to make it work.  BD  </p> <hr> <p>In this inspiring 90-minute documentary, filmmaker David Grubin - the son of a general practitioner - takes his camera across America<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="107" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-0gyQ6Xa98QI/VR-KSZm4nBI/AAAAAAABMMQ/4qn5THRPZ0A/image%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="235"> to focus on the challenges and triumphs in our country’s health care delivery system. The four segments that comprise Rx: The Quiet Revolution introduce us to a diverse group of doctors, nurses, and health care professionals who are transforming the way we receive our medical care: lowering costs by placing the patient at the center of their practice.</p> <p>A staggering 50 percent of American adults suffer from a chronic disease such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity and arthritis — and one in four has two or more chronic health conditions. In <em>Rx: The Quiet Revolution</em>, you’ll travel across America to discover a quiet revolution happening in medicine. From Maine to Mississippi, Alaska to California, see physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals placing the patient at the center of their practice — transforming the way medical care is delivered while lowering costs and improving outcomes.</p> <p>Along the way, filmmaker David Grubin — the son of a general practitioner — brings you these compelling stories: </p> <ul> <li>In Maine, Grubin meets Dr. David Loxterkamp, who practices family medicine with a team of doctors working to treat patients with chronic illnesses. </li></ul> <ul> <li>In Mississippi, a state with more diabetes cases than any other, Grubin finds a rural health clinic fighting diabetes with the aid of an electronic communications device that provides greater access to medical care, helping patients take responsibility for managing this devastating chronic disease. </li></ul> <ul> <li>In Alaska, the documentary follows Native Alaskans who own and operate their own health system, caring for 65,000 people across 107,000 square miles. In spite of the number of patients and the vast distances between them, they are determined to foster an empathetic relationship between patients and their health care providers. </li></ul> <ul> <li>In San Francisco, Grubin visits a health care facility for seniors called On Lok, dedicated to making it possible for frail, elderly Americans in need of nursing home care to live with dignity in their own homes. </li></ul> <p><a href="http://www.pbs.org/program/rx-quiet-revolution/">http://www.pbs.org/program/rx-quiet-revolution/</a></p>

“RX-The Quiet Revolution”–Documentary Focuses on a Diverse Group of Doctors and Healthcare Professionals Transforming Medical Care and Putting the Patient at the Center of Their Practice…

This a long documentary, 90 minutes but well worth watching.  Below the line you can read what the film is all about.  Actually you get to s...

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CVS to Share More Medication Adherence Love With New Contracts–Will Have More Data to Sell…

<p>Ok, so now if you wait 2 days to pick up your prescription, your doctor is going to know.  If you don’t pick it up at all, your doctor will know.  With linking other information to paying for your prescription at CVS, you doctor may now know.  </p> <p>Here we go again with “over rated” medication adherence.  Certainly a simple intervention as to ask why a patient doesn’t fill a prescription is not the issue here and we are seeing such actions all over the place and that’s not the problem here.  We see pharmacists inquiring more frequently now everywhere.  </p> <p>All those pharmacy benefit managers have to have more information to sell to companies like <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="134" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-kPR8KQGlBqw/VR1bPIr832I/AAAAAAABML4/52hlZ-nZrsg/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" />IMS who has about 85% of the world’s prescriptions on file and when they can add more “scoring” and I mean scoring you on medication adherence, the money they get for selling it, goes up.  For years we have had Milleman and Optum RX selling your prescription data and it’s hooked right into the PBM centers release and sell the data immediately.  Optum aka United is one of the biggest healthcare data sellers out there, along of course with IMS.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/cvs-to-open-new-e-commerce-technology.html">CVS to Open New E-Commerce Technology Centers in Boston, New York and Palo Alto– Need “New Code” to Make Bigger Profits While They And Others Continue to Destroy “US Consumer Dignity” With the Exploitations…</a></h5> <p>Remember CVS has other marketing agendas out there to be aware of as well.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/cvs-to-charge-consumers-higher-co-pays.html">CVS To Charge Consumers Higher Co-Pays With Prescriptions Filled at Drug Stores That Still Sell Tobacco Products–Killer Algorithms Attacking Once Again To Make Sure CVS Gets the Prescription Revenue And Your Data To Score And Sell</a></h5> <p>It’s just something to think about with current breaches out there with all the data selling algorithms and systems CVS has as to how this interacts with the medical records they also have there.  They are two separate systems but information flows on prescriptions.  I see nothing wrong at all with using a CVS retail clinic as price and availability rules today.  Also the sharing with physicians of a visit is helpful too, but can we cut out some of the ridiculous data selling here and keep prescriptions affordable?  I’m sure all the retail clinics are sharing consult information as that’s a good thing to do with care, so again how they do it and this “digital” addition is not really such a big deal and you can get your own copy and share it with your doctor as well with a PHR.  </p> <p>There’s money made in selling wellness programs as well with both CVS and Walgreens.  As the article states CVS clinic visits are shared via fax with other non participating MDs anyway, so we have a cash cow here for some more data to sell.  If you don’t know what medication adherence is and the money made, read about the FICO medication scoring, you socks will fall off when you see all that is generated when you fill a prescription.  BD    </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> <hr />“The fundamental challenge of managing chronic conditions is coordinating and monitoring care when patients are not here in the Rush physician’s office” said Anthony Perry, MD, vice president for <a href="http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/directory/ambulatory-care">ambulatory care</a> and <a href="http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/directory/population-health">population health</a> at Rush University Medical Center. “Oftentimes having patients schedule more frequent visits at Rush is not feasible, but this agreement extends our physicians’ reach through the hundreds of CVS pharmacies and <a href="http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/directory/retail-health-clinic">retail clinics</a> in the area.”</p> <p><strong>In the CVS affiliations, providers at the health systems receive data on interventions conducted by CVS pharmacists to try to improve medication adherence, and alerts about non-adherence, such as failure to pick up a prescription. Clinicians at the affiliate health system are also able to work with nurse practitioners and physicians assistants at the Minute Clinics.</strong></p> <p><a href="http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/cvs-affiliates-rush-tuscon-coordinate-care">http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/cvs-affiliates-rush-tuscon-coordinate-care</a></p>

CVS to Share More Medication Adherence Love With New Contracts–Will Have More Data to Sell…

Ok, so now if you wait 2 days to pick up your prescription, your doctor is going to know.  If you don’t pick it up at all, your doctor will ...

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United Healthcare Buys Catamaran Pharmacy Benefit Manager Just As the PBM Gets Hit With A Class Action Lawsuit For Low Balling Pharmacy Reimbursements..And More Patient Data to Sell and Analyze For Profit

<p>As if there’s not enough pharmacy benefit management taking place at United, the company owns Optum, RX which was formerly known as prescriptive solutions and in some areas that PBM has put some smaller pharmacy benefit managers out of business.  </p> <p>Here’s from the website, same old pharmacy benefit management marketing if you ask me…not <img align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_v3zjJigoAPE/TXCfvYCDCBI/AAAAAAAAsv0/8biVjC7dBI0/image_thumb%5B1%5D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" />much new here, just stats, stats and more stats..</p> <p><em>“Catamaran offers a true alternative to the status quo in pharmacy benefit management. You don’t have to choose between the scale and purchasing power of the largest providers and the flexibility and agility of smaller ones. We offer the best of both. At Catamaran we put your individual needs — and those of your members — at the center of our services. We connect pharmacists, doctors and caregivers with prescription data to improve health outcomes, offering the clinical intelligence, technology and scale to lower payer costs while improving member health. Only Catamaran brings together the industry’s best technology with the industry’s most renowned client service model to offer true innovation, real flexibility and powerful results. Stay well ahead of costs. Stay well ahead of health issues. Stay well ahead with Catamaran.”</em></p> <p>About the Catamaran lawsuit, you can <a href="http://pennrecord.com/news/15756-class-action-accuses-catamaran-corp-of-low-balling-pharmacy-reimbursements">read more here</a> on how that goes.  The matter of low balling somehow reminds me of the AMA lawsuit where Ingenix, the former subsidiary of United Healthcare had to settle their class action suit of lowballing doctor payments for 15 years.  That occurred just a few years ago.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/ingenix-optum-united-healthcare.html">Ingenix (Optum-United Healthcare) Lawsuits Still Bouncing Around Out There–One Recently Settled in New Jersey With Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield That Was Still Using the Flawed and Corrupt Data Base for Out of Network Payment Calculations</a></h5> <p><em>“In court documents, the pharmacies claim Catamaran inflates the patient’s cost for prescription drugs through overcharging insurance plans while underpaying the pharmacies that dispense the drugs.  Catamaran’s practice of not disclosing new pricing until a claim adjudicates constitutes bad faith and unfair dealing, the claim says, because it denies pharmacies the opportunity to plan for changes in reimbursement and will inevitably cause financial harm to those pharmacies.”</em></p> <p>Of late the company has been putting out press releases about giving away Easter baskets and having an all day city baby shower?  I think that’s all distraction from the business of healthcare that Untied runs.  They make more money selling data than most out there.  Here’s something of contrast worth a look at Johns Hopkins “wants” to be in their network for folks why buy insurance from the exchanges and United fired them.</p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/johns-hopkins-states-insurance-plans.html">Johns Hopkins -Insurance Plans From United Healthcare Bought Via Exchanges Will Not Be Able to Use Johns Hopkins Physicians or Medical System–Filed Lawsuit To Sue United, Stating Violation of 1997 Contract</a></h5> <p>Also worth noting is this huge big conglomerate also tries it’s best to “dupe” young developers into writing code for them for free too, they always have a way to get something for almost nothing over there and sell the heck out of your data to make billions in profits.  When you read this “write for the Longevity network pimp article, you know exactly they want apps to mine more data to sell.  That’s 1/3 of the United<img align="right" alt="problemwithmodels2" border="0" height="146" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-PEtbqDYN9PI/VRlyyhd1ekI/AAAAAAABMLQ/fh7lFi5FE8g/problemwithmodels2%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="problemwithmodels2" width="258" /> business today and 2/3rd of what they do is insurance.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/aarp-and-united-healthcare-form.html">AARP and United HealthCare Form “Longevity Network”–Time To Find Some More “Cheap Code” Looking For Millennials Still Living At Home Who Can Afford The Time To Write…Cash For Code Again</a></h5> <p>Every time you fill a prescription, the amount of “data for sale” that comes out from that transaction is amazing and mounts up to a ton of profits, meanwhile you and I aren’t getting any healthier overall and sure there’s some basic analytics that offer insights which is good, but Untied is way beyond that.  I was told for years that Medicare/CMS depended on they heavily to help them create their business models by some former employees.  It makes sense to me a they have truckloads of subsidiary companies that operate where you don’t even see it.  About a year ago I had a hospital CEO fall off his chair when he realized how many Untied subsidiaries they were writing check to.  Anyway, see the link below as here’s how this “buy and conquer” data selling thing works…and people lose jobs too.  Heck who knows maybe they’ll be buying this outfit next:) <img align="right" height="93" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-6HDDm04lOwA/Ts0zq-EuFHI/AAAAAAAA4d8/nMT-KL0JEDY/image_thumb%25255B12%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="float: right; display: inline" width="199" /></p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/05/express-scripts-to-lay-off-400-people.html">Express Scripts To Lay Off 400 People Tampa As United Healthcare Moves Patients To Their Own pharmacy benefit Management Company-Subsidiary Watch</a></h5> <p>Keep in mind that insurers have hired armies of quants now that design policies as this way they get both the long and the short projections too, the long from the actuaries and the short value from the quants so they can correlate those numbers with stock prices.  That can really be of value right now with the record numbers of stock buy backs taking place.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/10/data-scientistsquants-in-health.html">Data Scientists/Quants in the Health Insurance Business–Modeling Beyond the Speed and Capabilities of Humans To Keep Up With The Affordable Care Act–Turning Into A World of Killer Algorithms That We All Hate..</a></h5> <p>So all in in, you’re just another script in the wall…and of course the pharmacy benefit mangers run a lot of United/Optum software to score you for medication adherence and other items about you they can sell for profit.  Optum and Milleman have had software doing analytics hooked up to pharmacy benefit management companies for years selling all kinds of prescription data that is not protected by HIPAA as this is not a protected entity in case you thought it was with privacy.  See look at this, even if they don’t own the pharmacy benefit manager, they sell them software so United wins and gets money everyway around the hook anymore.  By the way, the company mentioned in the link below, Ingenix is now called Optum and their former<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="261" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-NS4TxOPAFpA/VRlyzvs5nDI/AAAAAAABMLY/L2VQxO7WnS4/image%25255B6%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="251" /> CEO is now running Medicare, Andy Slavitt.  </p> <p>If you go back in time there were tons of Ingenix lawsuits against Ingenix and their false positives on fraud that put a lot of doctors out of business and then too we had the AMA settlement.  The AMA class action settlement was for short paying doctors for 15 years on out of network payments, and again that was all during the time when current Medicare Chief Andy Slavitt was CEO of Ingenix.  HHS blessed him every which way but loose when they hired him as they had to stop the conflict of interests as he would not be able to do his job with everyone after his former efforts at his prior employer, United.  By the way, Mr. Slavitt started his career as a Goldman Sachs banker.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2010/10/express-scripts-new-program-to-contact.html">Express Scripts- New Program to Contact and Predict Patients Who May Not Be Taking Their Medicine Based On Ingenix Algorithms–We Want the Revenue Please Don’t Stop</a></h5> <p>Last but not least, don’t forget that Pharmacy Benefit Managers are in the business to sell drugs so again United has more money coming in from that direction and there’s hungry IMS who wants to buy up and sell all kinds of prescription data out there as well.  So there’s more money that goes into the United profit pot, and oh by the way, IMS had an IPO last year, that $180 billion dollar a year data selling business hurting consumers is growing like a weed.  Look at the image at the left, just a bunch of software acquisitions and merging of such…same old same old in that respect.  BD </p> <hr />The largest US health insurer is to spend almost $13bn to buy a company that manages prescription medicines for 35m patients, the biggest in a series of healthcare deals announced on Monday as consolidation in the industry continues at a blistering pace.<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="135" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-CxLNHsbutBE/VRly0KU6GmI/AAAAAAABMLg/-BwY3sCLIWk/image%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="187" /> <p><a href="http://markets.ft.com/tearsheets/performance.asp?s=us:UNH">UnitedHealth</a> said it would acquire Catamaran Rx, the fourth-biggest US pharmacy-benefits manager, for $61.50 per share in cash and combine it with OptumRx, its own pharmacy business. The $12.8bn offer represents a 27 per cent premium to Catamaran’s closing price on Friday.</p> <p><a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0baf5494-d6e0-11e4-a99f-00144feab7de.html?ftcamp=published_links/rss/home_us/feed//product#axzz3Vsjhugwp">http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0baf5494-d6e0-11e4-a99f-00144feab7de.html?ftcamp=published_links/rss/home_us/feed//product#axzz3Vsjhugwp</a></p>

United Healthcare Buys Catamaran Pharmacy Benefit Manager Just As the PBM Gets Hit With A Class Action Lawsuit For Low Balling Pharmacy Reimbursements..And More Patient Data to Sell and Analyze For Profit

As if there’s not enough pharmacy benefit management taking place at United, the company owns Optum, RX which was formerly known as prescrip...

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Amazing Breakthrough With Brain Cancer, Using the Body’s Immune System and the Polio Virus to Shrink and Even Dissolve the Tumors-Game Changing Clinical Trial That Is Working…

<p>This is a phenomenal story and 60 Minutes designated two of their normal 3 spot to cover.  Who would have ever thought that the Polio virus would play an important role in curing cancer, but it is.  The research behind the trial has been relentless for years and <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="147" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-phjOSoM9MOU/VRjexuDAz9I/AAAAAAABMK8/Gf9Jno8utO8/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="227">now it’s working.  Sure there’s some trial and error but who would have ever thought the disease we worked to eradicate would play a role in curing cancer.  </p> <p>One dose that takes hours to administrate to the brain is the treatment.  Initially the doctors said the tumor looked inflamed and could have been mistaken for growth but in reality it’s inflamed as it’s the body’s immune system attacking the tumor.  </p> <p>What do patients have to lose when diagnosed with a few months live?  The doctor had those who didn’t think it would work and thought he was nuts.  Polio seeks out and attaches to a receptor that attaches to the tumor.  The virus has been modified and it can’t reproduce in normal cells but it does in cancer cells.  </p> <p>The FDA was afraid the doctor could create a monster.  Seven years of safety studies were done before the approval in 2011.  The one 20 year old student had a tumor the size of a tennis ball in her head.  In 2012 her cancer came back after surgery and she was out of options.  Again, she had nothing to lose.  </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=CuVjyUR0zUhF&url=http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/killing-cancer-part-one" /></embed></p> <p>It was very important to make sure the Polio virus goes to the right place.  In the second video 60 Minutes continues on to talk about the dosing and some disappointments that occurred.  They young 21 year old was basically cured, or as the story states, it’s in remission.  The second patient treated was a doctor.  </p> <p>Who would have ever thought Polio would end up being the cure with cancer.  The crew has also done clinical tests with other types of cancer and it’s working the same way, great news with melting away tumors.  </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=6_jloCm_wQfx&url=http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/killing-cancer-part-one" /></embed></p> <p>This stand to be the biggest news on the war on cancer in years.  Duke University provides a check up for the patients every 4 months and so far they have 14 patients in the trial.  Avastin was also used to help reduce the swelling so that drug also looks as if it will be a part of the entire treatment program.  The Polio virus works from the inside out and 60 Minutes does a good job documenting most of this.  Even those who didn’t survive, did have an increase of more than 6 months.  Again the dosage was the big key in not giving too much.</p> <p>What a story and hope for cancer victims!  In the lab all types of other cancers are being attacked with the Polio virus.  BD  <hr> </p> <p>For more information on the Duke University polio trial or other brain cancer trials, <a href="http://www.cancer.duke.edu/btc/">click here </a>or call <a href="tel:919-684-5301">919-684-5301</a></p> <p><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polio-cancer-treatment-duke-university-60-minutes-scott-pelley/">http://www.cbsnews.com/news/polio-cancer-treatment-duke-university-60-minutes-scott-pelley/</a></p>

Amazing Breakthrough With Brain Cancer, Using the Body’s Immune System and the Polio Virus to Shrink and Even Dissolve the Tumors-Game Changing Clinical Trial That Is Working…

This is a phenomenal story and 60 Minutes designated two of their normal 3 spot to cover.  Who would have ever thought that the Polio virus ...

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“Cybertopia-Dreams of Silicon Valley”-Documentary About Politics, Economics and Debate on Where is the “Real” World Today? The Producers the Takers and the Dupers…

<p>This starts back to Kevin O’Connor talking about his views.  We do  have to remember there was a huge strike of luck that helped him get his start as what occurred with many early Venture Capitalists.  Sure there’s a ton of knowledge but I think the smart <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="191" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-QqCa8jBtIHk/VRg7J_7JQQI/AAAAAAABMJ0/dW59LhZMzd0/image%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="248" />ones still realize that a little bit of luck was on their side too and that occurs in all walks of life.   The basics of people working together has not changed.  It is interesting to hear what they have to say.  We can all agree on Capitalism not working but what some of the VCs interviewed here forgot to mention is the cooperation of Wall Street and the financial markets they have.  They wouldn’t have their money without it:)  </p> <p>We do have two very different societies out there today and this documentary I think exposes that very nicely without an all out attack on how technology companies and their executives “think”.  On the extreme other side we have the political dupers and we all get tired of them, the government who’s way behind both technology and Wall Street.  One thing I think that deserves a bit more focus is that “people have to be responsible for their algorithms and code” and perhaps we’ll hear more about that this year.  I’ve been focusing on it for a number of years here but now when the divide becomes so large with the gap of income and money, it’s not going away.  It’s also getting harder to be the overnight success with technology today as it’s a changed world from where we started years ago.  Tim Draper, offers some interesting opinions and I do have to say he’s out there a bit.  What I found disturbing about some of his comments though is he wants the divide and somewhat encourages a split world.  For those who do not have the code, we kind of live under the Attack of the Killer Algorithms as we don’t have the code writing connections to battle back and are offered a reality of what technologists see and there’s not one with a different view.</p> <p>It’s also interesting to hear another point of view on how technologists can see things ahead of other, well yeah they can, they write the code.  You see Mr. Draper dancing his fanny off on “how happy” he is.  Well he’s wealthy and who wouldn’t be happy if you had the same amount of money.  We need a balance with how technologies work with the “real world”.  What I found interesting is what some of the folks interviewed called “the real world”.  Context comes into play here by all means. <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="145" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-YFn_KNx5glU/VRg7KyHnHAI/AAAAAAABMJ8/ZxN-zYH6EFk/image%25255B12%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="230" /> I have an entire different view of “the real world” and kind of align myself with <a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/">people like Emanuel Derman, a Quant</a> who teaches a Columbia and was one of the first Quants who worked at Goldman Sachs years ago.</p> <h5><a href="http://www.ducknet.net/attack-of-the-killer-algorithms/">The Attack of the Killer Algorithms- Some Technologies Help and Some Don't</a></h5> <p>Perception is key in a lot of this and what really does have value.  As a developer there’s nothing like that big thrill of seeing what you wrote “actually work” and 99.99 percent of those who develop experience that, but of that crowd, that get the hype and feeling of accomplishment, 99.99 of that group do not become millionaires and don’t have the code written that creates value for the average consumer.  It’s a hard nut to crack and again focus on how people work.  The video moves on to speak to a young Google executive too.  What is interesting is that as of a year or so ago, Google themselves found they needed to do a study as they don’t understand how their own people work…so we do get a ton of crap software to where the imagination of the developer is not really how people work and nor can you change a lot of behaviors with software either.  There are some you can if a consumer feels they are getting some value, but look at mHealth apps, tons and very few use them as they don’t feel there’s any value and they are foreign to how we work as humans.  Then the marketing and guilt marketing kicks in to push it to make money and that’s when things really get skewed.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/05/people-dont-work-that-way-world-of.html">“People Don’t Work That Way” A World of Broken Software Models That Don’t Align To the Human Side,Too Much Push At Times With Only A Proof of Concept That Fails in the Real World..</a></h5> <p>So in other words you have a lot to cook up in the kitchen with the odds really not being in your favor.  Some succeed and we do all benefit but what about the rest who’s dreams don’t make it?  Are they happy dressing up in costumes as we see here (grin).  I think that’s a good question to ponder over and over and over as now we are getting in touch with the “real” real world.   I could understand the enthusiasm of the young Google executive and sure we need some of that for sure but what happens when he’s done with is Legos?  It’s code Legos and one thing he mentions that does happen is the interruption of a phone call to dump all your Legos on the floor.  That is true as the focus here is very intense today.  </p> <p>People don’t come to the Silicon Valley to make money, well I can debate that one with all the banks and financial firms who have labs in the Valley, writing code to make money.  There’s a partnership with Wall Street and Silicon Valley and Computer Scientist Jaron Lanier hit the nail on the head in stating such recently.  It didn’t start out that way, but that’s how it is today.  </p> <p>One thing for sure, and this is my own observation and you can give it some thought, is that we watch Wall Street toss money at the most “Digital Illiterate” politicians out there today, just read the news.  Why?  The dumber they are the easier they can be manipulated.  Then we have to be entertained to the extremes with how “digital illiterate” they are and get to hear them talk about abortions, they can model laws <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="263" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-W_ZS5jeXuZI/VRg7MPlSwpI/AAAAAAABMKE/5xGvTyRHPD4/image%25255B10%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="339" />and bills and the folks on the technology side completely get this.  Look at how Google has successfully figured out how to work both sides and they do it well and toss enough money out there to get some open ears.  There’s no such thing as “sharing for the good” any more as it’s all shifted to “sharing for the good money”, not ours, their money:)  Further more read this link below and see how news manipulation is the next ‘big rig”.  It’s all about using technology to coerce and give the impression that you are “doing it for the good”.  Not every company though is like this and there are some outstanding companies that really are doing things for the good.</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>Take Theranos as an example.  There’s just no comparison here with the value they are creating in making labs affordable and doable for the average consumer.  They are a company that combines the old school of what Silicon Valley set out to do, create value.  We need more companies like Theranos for sure and I don’t have an issue with companies like them making money as consumers do get a return and their low cost labs do help us and it’s not just some wild flinging perceptual algorithms that “say” it’s here to help you.  What Theranos is doing is real value and is not just a bunch of bots out there to gobble up other data and present you a perceptual madness of value.  In other words, they offer more than just a bunch of bots and algorithms running on server farms somewhere.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/its-basic-human-right-for-individuals.html">“It’s A Basic Human Right for Individuals to Have Access-One Drop of Blood”Theranos CEO & Founder, Elizabeth Holmes TED Video</a></h5> <p>So how do both worlds come together with “real world” solutions and not Tim Draper with a tie showing how to split up California so they can “leave the real world” behind?  I’m not attacking him but rather looking at a big picture here overall.  They want to escape and certainly I share the frustrations of the politicians we elect is just not being there and creating more problems than solutions these days as they still seem to think their legal verbiage can control those who code and the perceptions that are sold and marketed.  Burning Man is discussed here and did you read the news where when the tickets went on sale a few weeks ago about how 200 technologists “hacked” the system to take opportunities away from others who want to enroll and attend?  </p> <p><strong>Kevin Slavin hit the nail on the head with the hacking of the Burning Man tickets and said “that looks just like front running that takes place with High Frequency Traders on the Stock Market”,</strong> in other words folks that know how to code and hack right front showed you their talent (if you call it that in this instance) and how they can jump right out and smash and hopes of the average consumer wanting to learn.  I did have to laugh when I saw Slavin’s tweet, he was right on target when 200 Silicon Valley Techs hacked the site to get their tickets, no regard for anyone else on the site wanting tickets who had put in their requests, but they did get caught.    By the way watch video #4 in the footer here from Kevin Slavin and he’ll explain a lot more to you on how this works.  As a matter of fact, all the videos in the footer are good to watch as all of the “smart” folks there are taking time to help educate the average consumer on “what’s really going on” out there.  People use code to manipulate and make money and like it or not some of it cheats and fiddles with risk formulas and that’s all hidden in proprietary code so you never get to see it and most of the writing you see on the web is from people who analyze “what code does” and the sometimes un-intentional consequences it creates.  </p> <p>Politicians are heavily manipulated and they can’t even see a lot of it for the most part as again they forget that there’s more to laws today than just flat out verbiage to regulate how code works, and this is not just in the stock market, those models are all over the place.  <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="185" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-CjDhENrV1pU/VRg7NRrvsDI/AAAAAAABMKM/a20MnsdbWMI/image%25255B39%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="253" />I said three years ago that Congress needed to restore the Office of Technology Assessment and get up to speed here and stop distracting consumers with their political garbage.  I agree with the Silicon Valley on that end of it as I grow very tired of the nonsense and what we see in the news.  One example here is the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act.  I thought most news accountings of this were like morons discussing it.  </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>Hey folks did we forget about Healthcare. Gov and all the code?  Yes indeed it appears that way as most articles focused on the the politics and not the cold hard fact that if you change provisions of the law, line up some coders to change the IT infrastructures that run it.  I didn’t see anyone else relate to that fact and I guess everything that was learned with complexities of IT systems today with the roll out of the website as soon forgotten and we reverted back to the old school again, which does not work.  Sure get rid of subsidies, well guess what, you might be creating “algorithm hell” for consumers as insurers, government, etc. all have to change IT system..duh?  Again, this should be brought to the attention of consumers as that’s the real world and laws depend on complex IT infrastructures to run it.  </p> <p>Instead we get stupid news with Cruz, Feinstein, McCain, and the list goes on with their opinions and not one could talk the real world with their opinions.  I started calling this the Sebelius Syndrome and others are afflicted.  She got the name as nobody else was so digital illiterate in the public eye over and over and over and she couldn’t’ stop herself with the whacked out perceptions she kept putting in the news, over and over and over.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/04/markets-are-not-rigged-spoken-like-true.html">“Markets Are Not Rigged” Spoken Like A True Data Mechanics Novice, It’s Like Sebelius at HHS All Over Again, Looking For Algo Fairies at The SEC, One More Government Agency Wrapped Up in “The Grays”…</a></h5> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/09/senator-john-mccain-another.html">Senator John McCain: Another Demonstration of Why Congress Should Reinstitute the Office of Technology Assessment, When Education Takes Place, Less Distractions With Boredom And More Respect for Consumers…</a></h5> <p>There’s some good coverage here with how Wired Magazine functions and how they report technology news.  They are trying, like I do here to show how much power there is with computer code and what disruption does, the good and the bad and be an advocate where it works.  </p> <p><iframe style="height: 297px; width: 484px" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YQy0ZCx3UCY" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p> <p>Here’s another reason that all this is growing and the fact that we have two different societies out there..people just hate<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="76" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-gY3xu1GgQBQ/VRg-ToZjZPI/AAAAAAABMKg/xbiao2hSN20/image%25255B7%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="187" /> math and code and run for the hills.  This is not saying everyone needs to be a coder or mathematician but understand the concept and how it works.  Sniff some data and choose the news you read carefully and stay away from the distractions that do nothing, i.e. Hilary email dumps for one:)  What impact does that have on you?  Absolutely nothing, but it capture way too much of your time and keep you distracted from what’s really taking place today.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/10/algo-duping-plos-one-journal.html">“Algo Duping” – Plos One Journal Publication Explains Why The Fear of Math Plays a Big Role As One Underlying Reason We All Get Duped And Those Who Don’t Fear Math Take All the Money, Gradually, Using “Mathematical Formulas & Algorithms”</a></h5> <p>Artificial Intelligence is also worth a mention and be aware of what can happen and how you get fooled.  I go back to a great lecture<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="66" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-uLam_tfIbrs/VRg-Uc0qE9I/AAAAAAABMKo/sfvCpbu1tkM/image%25255B8%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="193" /> given by Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle and he was first out there with his warning “be careful with artificial intelligence that’s smarter than you”, and after all it was his daughter who made the move “HER” to bring this to the forefront.  What kind of a “natural” world do we want?  Good points made at the end, could someone like Mark Zuckerberg embrace the real natural world lying in the grass picking flowers?  They don’t think so according to this video. </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/02/larry-ellison-ceo-oracle-hcm.html">Larry Ellison, CEO Oracle, HCM Conference Keynote–”Be Careful About Virtual Relationships With Artificially Intelligent Pieces of Software That’s Smarter Than You“, It’s Really All About People”–Algo Duping and the Killer Algorithms Living Amongst Us…(Update) Video</a></h5> <p>So the question is, how do we unite both societies?  We need to do that and get real numbers, real world values to all come together<a href="http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776"><img align="right" border="0" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-WjSMddBKiho/VAJ2n8h7WcI/AAAAAAABLOU/rTfddMqQxlU/GoFundMe%25255B5%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" /></a> soon, as we’re not looking so good to separate but rather need to united, some levels need to come up and some levels need to go down to understand the big picture and start looking at real world values and not just the virtual worlds.  <strong>Virtual world values do impact the “real world” and consumers need to be educated on both and not just duped into “virtual values” as sold and marketed today for money and power, and to me that’s a lot of what’s wrong out there today.  </strong></p> <p><strong>Now that you have watched the documentary, here’s Jaron Lanier, a computer scientist, well known through out the tech society and he does a good job explaining the consumer impact of a lot of this with “behavior restriction”.  Who are the people restricting our behavior?  We don’t know and need to <a href="http://www.youcaring.com/other/help-preserve-our-privacy-/258776"><em>index and at least license them</em></a> so we know who they are.  BD</strong></p> <p><iframe style="height: 281px; width: 491px" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7rpQKalPqcc" frameborder="0" width="560" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><strong></strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQy0ZCx3UCY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQy0ZCx3UCY</a></p>

“Cybertopia-Dreams of Silicon Valley”-Documentary About Politics, Economics and Debate on Where is the “Real” World Today? The Producers the Takers and the Dupers…

This starts back to Kevin O’Connor talking about his views.  We do  have to remember there was a huge strike of luck that helped him get his...

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“Stop the 1000 Deaths a Day Pass Policy Specifically Defining and Mandating EHR Interoperability”-Change.Org

<p>As you can read 25,000 signatures are needed to move to the White House to be addressed.  Read through the campaign from Dr. Volz.   We do need something out there to improve perception of not only the public but also folks in healthcare and to keep clinical data clear and valuable, and not have more data fall into the ugly world of data sellers for profit along the way.  BD  </p> <p> <hr />Dear Friend,</p> <p>I am contacting you today to gauge your support for a new initiative. I have placed a petition on <a href="http://chn.ge/1GYqx7N">Change.org</a> to launch a national grass roots campaign today to reduce the medical miscommunications in healthcare systems. This is an issue that affects every American who has<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="183" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-CvEYv1FQahQ/VRLSBWOnBlI/AAAAAAABMJY/bhpgGjGfTYI/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" /> ever needed to go to the doctor or hospital. Every American needs to be aware of this issue to speak up to protect themselves and their families from this almost entirely avoidable situation. </p> <p>By signing the petition, we demand that the government and medical industry solve what is a very easy problem to fix. Once signed by 25,000 U.S. residents age 18 and older, the petition will be sent to the White House for review and a specific, timely action plan. </p> <p>At a recent <a href="http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/deaths-by-medical-mistakes-hit-records">senate subcommittee hearing</a>, it was revealed that more than 1,000 people are killed and 10,000 injured every day due to medical errors largely caused by technology mistakes.  Approximately 40% of these errors are directly related to information omissions and miscommunications. This campaign seeks to forge a government and industry solution in solving this lapse in electronic healthcare communications, a cornerstone of Obamacare.</p> <p>Why do we need government intervention?</p> <p>· There has been no improvement in patients’ health information flow in medical communications systems and no support for sharing this crucial data flow among care providers since the transition from paper to electronic medical records. The result is the high number of medical errors leading to death will remain unchanged without government intervention.</p> <p><b></b></p> <p>· Hospital boards have no incentive to adopt technology to solve the problem because inaction costs less money than fixing it. The result? Hospitals are not actively looking for a solution, unless it is mandated as part of a government intervention, similar to the same intervention to transition from paper to electronic medical records. </p> <p>· Most of healthcare vendors, notably electronic health record (EHR) vendors, have no incentive to address these issues in order to push for their own product solutions. This leaves the lack of EHR interoperability, the most critical area to reduce medical errors leading to death, with no near term improvement. </p> <p>· Existing government bodies are in place, but the focus and timetable are not aligned with the urgency for improving patient outcomes, which claim US lives on a daily basis.</p> <p><b>Sixth in the U.S. for Deaths</b></p> <p>If the Center for Disease Control reported a category for erroneous medical deaths, it would rank 6th in the U.S.  And the cost?  A cool trillion dollars a year. Sadly, this figure is not too far from similar statistics found 15 years ago.  </p> <p>By implementing an EHR connectivity solution, hospitals and medical professionals would save billions in lower insurance premiums as there will be fewer medical death and error lawsuits. These actions will lower medical costs and will benefit everyone.</p> <p>Healthcare should not be replaced by no one cares. The life you might be saving could be your own.</p> <p>Thank you!</p>

“Stop the 1000 Deaths a Day Pass Policy Specifically Defining and Mandating EHR Interoperability”-Change.Org

As you can read 25,000 signatures are needed to move to the White House to be addressed.  Read through the campaign from Dr. Volz.   We do n...

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Radio Shack in Their Bankruptcy Case Says “Screw Your Privacy Consumers” We Need the Money to Pay Debtors, We’re Putting All Your Customer Data We Have On File Up For Bid..

<p>We all know how bankruptcy goes and how the courts over look and distribute money to pay off the debtors and look here, data selling takes on yet one more face,  so all the loyal customers are about to get screwed in the end so they can pay their debtors.  You can’t <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="164" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-TUBulg40vxQ/VRI0NJfe83I/AAAAAAABMJE/PerguqKT8as/image%25255B3%25255D.png?imgmax=800" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" title="image" width="264" />make this stuff up.  Oh but there’s good news, the debtors swear up and down they won’t repackage and sell you again..right!  I have a couple bridges I could sell on that one.  Repackaging data is a big deal and you can end up with counterfeit data, just like counterfeit drugs float around in the system.  This is especially the case with the Anthem breach as hackers are getting smarter and know they can use some minor SQL skills and repackage all the data and sell it, with no mention that it came from Anthem and make a lot of money.  You can read more at the link below and so far the only ones who have a real interest seem to be the security folks while the general public continues to sleep on their laurels.  </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>Now even AT&T is hacked off over this as they say all the data Radio Shack intends to sell is not even theirs…oh boy.  A couple of years ago I called this syndrome a Data Selling Epidemic and still few listen but wise up as it’s out there and the personal data selling business is worth about $180 billion a year so everyone who had one stick of data about you is trying figure out how to make money selling it, or scoring you to even make more money with the data.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/11/online-data-brokers-persist-listing.html">Online Data Brokers Persist, Listing Consumers on Chronic Disease Mailing Lists And More–Need To License and Index All Data Sellers, Brokers, Banks, Companies, Otherwise You Don’t Have a Complete Listing of Who They Are…</a></h5> <p>See this little campaign on the right hand side of this site?  Read and go there and if you can donate to the cause as privacy will efforts will fail if we don’t have an index on who all the the data sellers are, as how do you go fix the flawed data reported about you when you have been repackat3e and resold?  You can’t and I’m stuck on a list of people who use blood thinners and it’s totally erroneous as I have never been prescribed any, nor taken any in my life.  It’s the result of sloppy data work and they don’t care as bad data gets the same price as good data.  </p> <p><strong><em>Ok so when does the next hospital that goes bankrupt say “screw you patients and HIPAA, we need the money to pay our debtors (grin).</em></strong>  </p> <p>With Radio Shack, the greedy debtors also want all your personal identifying information (PII) data too and there’s been a few challenges there, but if it’s only lawyers and not any tech folks involved, they’ll lose as they still think legal verbiage is enough to fight cheating code and boy are they wrong on that one.  You see it everywhere, even at the White House as they all live too virtual today and confuse virtual world values with the real world.  In this case we have virtual values being sold that are indeed coming out to attack the real world and we have way too many people that think God or legal verbiage will protect us, but look around, neither one are beating any algorithms out there and the rate of inequality due to such keeps growing.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/03/virtual-worlds-real-world-we-have.html">Virtual Worlds, Real World We Have A Problem And It’s A Big One With A Lot of Gray Areas Finding Where The Defining Lines Exist, Confusing Many With A Lot of Weird Values And Strange Perceptions…</a></h5> <p>Ok so enough with interrupting the news hour today and now you can safely go back and read about Hillary’s virtual email issues, a bunch of which was probably written by a bots.  More on how that works at the link below.  BD</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> <hr /> <p>The data in question, according to a <a href="http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/1393.pdf">legal challenge</a> (PDF) launched by Texas regulators on Friday and joined by the state of Tennessee on Monday, includes "consumer names, phone numbers, mailing addresses, e-mail addresses, and, where allowed, activity data."</p> <p>The states say the sale breaches the 94-year-old chain's promises to its in-store and online customers that it would not sell their personal identifying information (PII) data.</p> <p>"The Debtors have affirmatively stated in multiple privacy policies currently in effect that consumer PII will never be sold. Yet the Debtors come before this Court with a Motion which seeks to do precisely that," according to the challenge.</p> <p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/tb/307mwk">http://www.reddit.com/tb/307mwk</a></p>

Radio Shack in Their Bankruptcy Case Says “Screw Your Privacy Consumers” We Need the Money to Pay Debtors, We’re Putting All Your Customer Data We Have On File Up For Bid..

We all know how bankruptcy goes and how the courts over look and distribute money to pay off the debtors and look here, data selling takes o...

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Just Approved by FDA, The Watchman Implanted In Two Patients in Southern California, Will Make Life Normal For Many…

<p>I think I have been writing here and there about the Watchman progress since I started 8 years ago and last week it was finally approved.  This device can help with less need for blood thinners with patients who are at risk with their use.  Here’s one from the archives below.<img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="251" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-MfIi3DlsBh4/VRD1Hb42KhI/AAAAAAABMIw/C0Mk5K69KUI/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="290" /></p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2009/03/arterial-fibrillation-what-will-be.html">Atrial Fibrillation – What will be the future standard of care, Warfarin or the Watchman Device?</a></h5> <p>The one surgeon had already implanted several Watchman devices during the clinical trials so it was a natural for him to do the next surgical procedure.  BD  </p> <p> <hr /></p> <p>Surgeons at two Southern California hospitals on Monday implanted a controversial heart device that struggled for years to gain the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.</p> <p>The Watchman device, made by Boston Scientific Corp. and designed to reduce the risk of stroke for people with irregular heartbeats, was approved March 13 by the FDA after years of trials, rejections and debate. An FDA advisory panel in October voted 6 to 5 that the device's benefits outweighed its risks.</p> <p>For decades, most people with atrial fibrillation — an abnormal heartbeat — have been treated with blood thinners, which decrease clots in the heart.</p> <p>But blood thinners can create complications, such as internal bleeding. Cardiologists have said ideal candidates for the Watchman would be people for whom blood-thinning drugs were considered risky or not effective.</p> <p>Mary Thomsen, a 77-year-old resident of Westwood, has waited months for the Watchman after blood-thinning medicine caused internal bleeding.</p> <p>"I'm happy to do it," Thomsen said shortly before the surgery at St. John's. "It's a very important procedure. It's going to make life normal for a lot of people."</p> <p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-new-heart-device-20150324-story.html?track=rss&cid=dlvr.it&dlvrit=52116">http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-new-heart-device-20150324-story.html?track=rss&cid=dlvr.it&dlvrit=52116</a></p>

Just Approved by FDA, The Watchman Implanted In Two Patients in Southern California, Will Make Life Normal For Many…

I think I have been writing here and there about the Watchman progress since I started 8 years ago and last week it was finally approved.  T...

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Blue Shield of California Plans to Contest Losing It’s Tax Exempt Status–But Still Need to Begin Filing Tax Returns From 2013 Forward

<p>This is not the first time something like this has happened.  UPMC had the city of Pittsburgh file a lawsuit against them for the same reasons.  I think that ended up being squashed but the mayor was the one who filed as the city could use the money. <img align="right" alt="image" border="0" height="75" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-Z9oAAjL8Ac4/VQruCOFE05I/AAAAAAABMIc/zt6X441UfU8/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="253" /> The public and government entities are certainly looking like they are keeping a much closer eye on “excess revenues” which is what you call profits for the non profits.  </p> <h5><a href="http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2013/09/legal-battle-with-city-of-pittsburgh.html">Legal Battle With City of Pittsburgh and UPMC Medical Center Heating Up Again–Non Profit Hospital Pays No Property Taxes & Gets $200 Million Dollar Tax Break With $1 Billion in Excess Profits</a></h5> <p>I wonder if the state will go after Kaiser Permanente next as they did have 4 times the reserves that Blue Shield has?  Kaiser has built some new hospitals and facilities in the last couple of years and that could have eaten some of the reserves but still I think it was around $21 billion they had in reserves.  </p> <p>Officials are arguing that the company is no longer serving the public good and should move forward to be a private company.  Blue Cross years ago used to be a non profit and made the change but it was their option and I don’t think that’s on the agenda now at least for Blue Shield.  Back when Blue Cross made the change it was less complicated to do so than it is now.  One thing you don’t have to be concerned about with Blue Shield though is stock buy backs, and read the link below if you want to see how that impacts what you pay for policies and what kind of policies we get today.  BD</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> <hr />SACRAMENTO — Blue Shield of California is protesting a state decision to strip the nonprofit health insurer of its tax-exempt status, which the company has held since its founding in 1939.</p> <p>The California Franchise Tax Board quietly revoked the tax break last August, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.</p> <p>The decision could put San Francisco-based Blue Shield on the hook for tens of millions of dollars in state taxes each year. The insurer has paid federal taxes for years.</p> <p>A spokeswoman for the tax agency declined to comment on why the insurer lost its status. The highly unusual action came after a lengthy state audit reviewed the justification for Blue Shield’s taxpayer subsidy, according to the newspaper.</p> <p>Blue Shield said Tuesday that it’s protesting the decision, but state officials have ordered it to file tax returns back to 2013 in the meantime.</p> <p><a href="http://www.dailyrepublic.com/usworld/blue-shield-fighting-the-removal-of-tax-exempt-status-by-ftb/">http://www.dailyrepublic.com/usworld/blue-shield-fighting-the-removal-of-tax-exempt-status-by-ftb/</a></p>

Blue Shield of California Plans to Contest Losing It’s Tax Exempt Status–But Still Need to Begin Filing Tax Returns From 2013 Forward

This is not the first time something like this has happened.  UPMC had the city of Pittsburgh file a lawsuit against them for the same reaso...

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