Thousands of Wisconsin Medicare recipients were wrongly told their benefits were being cut by $300 and the state has not notified them of the mistake. Even though no one will lose benefits, the state Department of Health Services decided not to notify those affected with a letter and instead is only telling those who call in to complain. Agency spokesman Seth Boffeli said a computer glitch led to 5,000 Medicare recipients wrongly being notified that the state would no longer be paying their benefits.
Millions of older and disabled people could face new restrictions on where they can go for medical equipment under a Medicare plan to overhaul how the federal insurer pays for such devices. Patients have long been able to choose any supplier, and Medicare would buy or rent the equipment based on a set schedule of fees. Now, the government plans to pay for devices sold only by approved suppliers, to be selected by competitive bidding. The change is expected to reduce costs for the government and save money for seniors. But it also may mean new hassles for patients, say suppliers and some patient-advocacy groups.
A couple of years ago, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies released studies that found at least 1.5 million people are hurt by medication mistakes every year in the United States, costing hospitals about $3.5 billion in additional treatment expenses. But technology companies claim to have a means of lowering these figures, and it's called Business Rule Management System, or BRMS. More and more, companies are looking to inject this type of technology deeper into their business computing systems. A recent example of one successful embrace of BRMS comes from Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Men are being urged to consider risks before undergoing prostate cancer screening in the wake of two studies that did not produce convincing evidence that routine testing significantly reduces the chance of dying from the disease. The PSA blood test, which millions of men undergo each year, did not lower the death toll from the disease in the first decade of a U.S. government-funded study involving more than 76,000 men, researchers reported.
Consumers that are cutting back on expenses now may continue to do so even after an economic recovery. In response, businesses should be cutting advertising budgets now, Nick Brien, a senior executive of ad firm Interpublic Group, tells Reuters.
Although it may sound optimistic, your organization must be prepared to pounce when the market comes back from the current recession. Here, Harvard Business School marketing professor John Quelch offers seven recommendations for marketers to plan ahead.