Sometimes I go a few weeks without an update but just did one yesterday and here’s another today.  You can read the article below andimage see there’s a hot line set up for those who received the wrong cards.  With so many entities in data systems today this is happening more frequently so thus here was the case of “flawed data” that was caught after the fact.  It could be worse if it had not been caught.  Software, in the words of Bills Gates is nothing more than a bunch of algorithms working together and thus these algorithms has some flawed data inside when running their missions. 

I started the series over a year ago and this as you can see is Chapter 51 as mistakes and mismatched data costs people job opportunities and credit score errors as well.  The credit scoring goes way deeper than that though with agencies that combine credible data with non credible data and then score consumers with information they mine from the web that could be total fiction.  Something needs to be done about that and all who sell data should be licensed and should pay quarterly excise taxes.  Companies makes billion and billions each year selling data.  Some companies that could expand manufacturing have opened up factories oversees and their expansion in the US has been to mine and sell data, which does nothing for US jobs.  Also a lot of the data they sell is becoming flawed and as consumers we have to fix all the corporate errors on our dime.

Attack of the Killer Algorithms! Digest & Links for All Chapters–Read About Math and Crafty Formulas Running on Servers 24/7 Making Life Impacting Decisions About You– Updated


Here was Chapter 50 and see how the algorithms made a decision to up a consumer’s health insurance premium by $100 a month.

Woman Moves 10 Miles in California, Blue Cross Raises Premiums From $418 a Month to $524–Quantified “Crap Algorithm” For Geographic Risk, Killer Algorithms Chapter 50 That Sustain Inequality In The US


Here’s another another post which I guess could have been part of the Killer Algorithm series to where the Academy of Family Practice Physicians found the United Healthcare algorithms calculating and paying doctors in some parts of the country less than Medicare. 

The AAFP Confronts United Healthcare On Reimbursements, Some Are Below Medicare Rates In Parts of the US–Payment Algorithms/Formulas Calculated Deep Within IT Infrastructures Do the Job


What is also amazing though too is the speed at which some folks think all of this comes together today is pretty simple, it’s not as more data has to connect from various silos to make a complete record or transaction and if that information comes from outside your silo and there’s errors, well like a snowball it rolls downhill and that data with flaws will do the same thing with every other data base it gets queried with.  The fun part of all of this though doesn’t really begin until the errors are fixed. 

By that time the data more than likely has been probably used by many sources and the tentacles could be many.  When the data queries roll out and like in this example, they are running 100 miles and hour but when you have to back up, try going back to the speed of around 10 miles per hour.  It’s just like a car when you talk about forward and backward speeds.  You can’t have same speed going backwards as you do forwards and all the errors have to be fixed. 

Systems are so complex today as we built them that way as companies competed to have an “edge” and in the financial markets, that’s still going on to the point of one quant suggested that they could use drones on the Atlantic ocean to get the signals faster on stock markets between the US and the UK, imagine that, not.  I’m not holding my breath when it comes to insurance exchanges either as so much data grew in the last 2 years and insurers are setting up their own exchanges as well…question is..how will they work and will the government be able to set up as they were originally designed.  Many states handed it over to the feds as the exchanges require negotiating with insurers and nobody looks forward to their complexities either.  I think the old cherry picking days for profit are drawing to a close and when you have to insure a big population in the US, might as dump a bunch of them as they no longer will or should apply.  BD 


A computer programming error is being blamed for a mass mailing mixup — California's Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) reported Saturday that 2,643 Medi-Cal benefits identification cards were sent to the wrong families. 

According to a news release, the BIC cards were meant for some of the children making the Jan. 1 transition from the Healthy Families Program to Medi-Cal.

Families sent cards by mistake will receive a self-addressed stamped envelope to mail them back. Additionally, a helpline has been set up at 1-855-297-5064, Monday through Friday, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

http://www.scpr.org/blogs/news/2012/12/22/11696/2643-medi-cal-benefits-cards-accidentally-mailed-w/

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