Sexually assaulted in the hospital? Died because they gave you the wrong blood type? … you could be billed!
More states shred bills for awful medical errors
Patients in 23 states will no longer pay for certain mistakes hospitals make.
According to an article by JoNel Aleccia a Health writer for MSNBC “Hospitals in nearly half the states in the nation now say they won’t bill patients for the worst kind of medical mistakes, including operating on the wrong body part or the wrong person, or giving someone the wrong blood.
The list has more than doubled since February, when an msnbc.com analysis showed that hospital associations in 11 states urged their members to waive payment for specific errors dubbed “never events” because they should never happen at all. “
Below is the list of “28 never events” 23 states hospitals have agreed not to bill for!
Adds a new meaning to the phrase “I’m just dying to go there” doesn’t it!
I wonder what the billing code is for a sexual assault in the hospital … or an abduction? Read the full article … it is insane what they will charge you for … and only 23 states have agreed to not bill you for these things.
Note that many of these work by adding an “optout cookie” to your browser. If you clear your browser cookies or they get deleted you’ll need to opt out again … so I recommend you bookmark this page.
A few of these require a mail in form or you calling a telephone number.
Of special note are the Credit Bureaus … Equifax, Experian, and Transunion … which can opt you out of unsolicited credit card and insurance offers globally, the government DONOTCALL registry which stops telemarketers from calling you, the search engines … which probably have more information about you than anyone and the Network Advertising initiative which lets you opt out from 16 at once.
Its getting harder and harder to know who to believe … when I see someone praising an ISP or a Cellphone company (which we all love to hate) I have to wonder … is that person making a living posting positive comments about this company.
There may be a tiny percent of these posts in comments and forums that are real … but lets face it .. people are more likely to write these when they have a bad experience and a whole lot of people have had a bad service experience(s) from their ISP and Cell Phone service.
“In online discussion media, satisfied consumers or “innocent” parties may express specific opinions in order to further the interests of an organization in which they have an interest, such as a commercial vendor or special-interest group. Websites may also be set up for the same purpose. For example, an employee of a company that produces a specific product may praise the product anonymously in a discussion forum or group in order to generate interest in that product, service or group.
In some jurisdictions and circumstances this type of activity may be illegal. In addition, reputable organizations may prohibit their employees and other interested parties (contractors, agents, etc.) from participating in public forums or discussion groups in which a conflict of interest might arise, or will at least insist that their employees and agents refrain from participating in any way that might create a conflict of interest.”
I recently read this article from Gigaom titled “New Report Says Tiered Broadband Bad, Unlikely” . They were discussing a Free Press Policy Brief – Blocking or Metering: A False Choice by S. Derek Turner, Research Director.
Gigaom said:
“Most people believe and some data shows that not only is the Internet not as congested as the carriers want you to believe, but usage isn’t growing as fast as we’re being told. So when I view efforts such as Frontier’s 5 GB data cap or Bell Canada’s usage pricing for smaller carriers using the Bell Canada network, and offering data over 2GB, I don’t see an honest attempt to deal with network congestion — I see anti-competitive behavior. And Frontier’s cap seems particularly stupid given that Time Warner hasn’t yet begun implementing a tiered system in Frontier’s region and will offer a cap that exceeds 5 GB if it does.
As the Free Press report states:
The arguments for the “need” to switch to limitation pricing essentially rest on the premise that we’ve somehow reached a magical bandwidth threshold that throws the entire industry pricing model out the window. We are being told that despite predictable growth, supply can no longer keep up with demand. The old “oversubscription” model has failed, and the only way to recoup costs and manage user behavior is through metered pricing. This seems highly implausible.
I agree, especially when I consider AT&T’s plans to upgrade its network and the cable providers talking about their plans to implement DOCSIS 3.0. If the networks are building out capacity, one would think they’d want customers to use it. Prohibitive caps make that use more expensive, and less accessible to the average users who have driven broadband growth. That’s one reason the Free Press indicates that caps will not gain in favor with ISPs. And if all they’re really trying to do to stifle video competition from sources such as Netflix, Hulu or Amazon, then it’s time for the FCC or Congress to get involved.”
I must say I totally agree with the last sentence of the last paragraph and sadly I believe that’s exactly where this is heading. I’m hoping the government isn’t too far in their pocket (ISP’s and the Movie and Music business) to stick up for us.
That’s great … Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central asked his listeners to write opinion posts about the podcast. In Friday’s podcast he announced there were 30 some listeners that had written an article and he put their names in an anonimizer and my name won.
This was my response to Todd Cochrane.
“First … let me say “Thank you very much”.
I would have written the article without a contest …. because I like the podcast and I enjoy writing about things I like or that pique my interest. Its fun for me to create an article … looking up the relevant links and putting it together into something that can be useful or informative to others … it’s something I do solely for my own entertainment.
Actually this has been my week for pleasant surprises. Earlier in the week I had also commented on one of Jason Calacanis’s newsletters and got a reply from Jason .. offering to send me some Mahalo coffee mugs (which arrived this week). Knowing Jason must receive 2000+ emails a day after filtering I was extremely surprised he even read my email … even more so when he responded.
So anyway .. my point is … I didn’t comment on Jason’s newsletter to get Mahalo coffee mugs, I didn’t write the article about Jason’s kindness to get wordpress stats, and I didn’t write the post about your podcast to win the contest (although $250 is nice and will come in handy) I wrote these things because that’s what blogging is about … writing about what is interesting to you and having fun doing it.
I guess I will remember this week as the week of good karma. Since these things usually happen in three’s I’m thinking I should buy a lottery ticket!
Thanks again!
PS … this is interesting too and will surely be another post!”
I was totally impressed … I thought I would have to upload a bunch of pics .. or it would make a slide of my pics. NO! What is does is auto create a slide show (which you can embed in your web page) from all shared flickr photos based on the tag you select and how people tagged their photos.
How to do it!
How to auto create and embed a slideshow of your tag
Tags insert related pictures from flickr that are tagged with that name. Results are phenominal!
Once you have the code you can copy and paste it onto your web page or create a text document blank web page and paste it between body and /body and save the text document as anyname.htm
The results of using the tag leolaporte and ambermac are below … better relevance than a Google search for their pictures … (and Leo makes some amazing faces)
Anyway … I’m not famous, or important, or a prodigy. I do crave the wisdom of people who I admire for their knowledge, wit, or accomplishments.
One of those people is Jason Calacanis.
I subscribe to his newsletter… and follow his posts on twitter and friendfeed and elsewhere. I often reply to his newsletter and in one “How to Generate Feedback for Your Startup (three simpleideas)” was a Question: “Do you have any ideas on how to engage people in your startups development?” and in the comments a was … “Kevin W. had a lot of suggestions, among his best was “* To help drive traffic, how about a referral program where you earn a couple of points for everyone you get to visit the site. You can then redeem your points for cash, music downloads, Mahalo merchandise, or whatever.” I love this idea. In fact, we’ve been thinking about doing this since day one, but we’ve focused like a laser on the core product. Maybe next year on this one.
Well I also agreed this idea had merit and mentioned it to Jason in my reply noting everyone wants a Mahalo coffee mug.
You could have knocked me over with a feather when I got a reply… (I mean Jason must get what 2000+ emails a day?). In his reply he thanked me for my comments and offered to send me some Mahalo coffee mugs. True to his word I received 3 mugs and a beach towel in the mail today courtesy of his assistant at Mahalo – Jason Krute. Mahalo … join the ohana!
Thanks Jason (both of you) … if there were a “My name is Jason” show on TV you would definetly be getting some extra karma points!
Here’s the picture … I’m doing my impersonation of Paul Thurrott (he uses a coffee cup the same way on his twitter pic).
So there I was watching season 2 episode 4 of “Burn Notice” on hulu.com .. and you know how they have these short commercials on there … well apparently the sponsor of this particular episode was Honda .
They had several different versions of a commercial with guy in a Honda Pilot stopping to pickup a jet pack guy out of fuel, a big truck with giant tires and a lift kitout of fuel, and a group of nudists … etc. and in each commercial the punch line is always my Honda Pilot gets 23 mpg highway …
What the ???? gas is $4 a gallon … doesn’t 23 mpg highway suck … and they are bragging about it?
So lets ask the question … Would you be encouraged or disappointed if you found out the highway miles the Honda Pilot gets is 23 per gallon ?
Many people these days use several social apps … like twitter, facebook etc. Friendfeed is a place you can go to see all your friends and postings from all those services and make comments or reply to the posts.
Stumbleread treats your Friendfeed as the left column and any post you click on in that column is displayed in the main page (including the video link or web gage mentioned in the post) .
Really very handy … keeps you from opening new tabs to view items. I Like it!
Wow, I won $250?
Shills on the internet … in comments … on forums
August 9, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Shills on the Internet
Its getting harder and harder to know who to believe … when I see someone praising an ISP or a Cellphone company (which we all love to hate) I have to wonder … is that person making a living posting positive comments about this company.
Does that happen? You bet it does… read this!
There may be a tiny percent of these posts in comments and forums that are real … but lets face it .. people are more likely to write these when they have a bad experience and a whole lot of people have had a bad service experience(s) from their ISP and Cell Phone service.
“In online discussion media, satisfied consumers or “innocent” parties may express specific opinions in order to further the interests of an organization in which they have an interest, such as a commercial vendor or special-interest group. Websites may also be set up for the same purpose. For example, an employee of a company that produces a specific product may praise the product anonymously in a discussion forum or group in order to generate interest in that product, service or group.
In some jurisdictions and circumstances this type of activity may be illegal. In addition, reputable organizations may prohibit their employees and other interested parties (contractors, agents, etc.) from participating in public forums or discussion groups in which a conflict of interest might arise, or will at least insist that their employees and agents refrain from participating in any way that might create a conflict of interest.”
Categories: Internet · Prices
Tagged: at&t, bell, blogs, comcast, comments, fake blogs, forums, isps, PR, public relations, rogers, shills, t-mobile, time warner, toddlorensinclair, verizon, what...?, wiki