Entries from April 2006 ↓

(originally published August 3rd, 2005)

Last Friday night, my wife and I went to dinner with a good friend of mine from college. The waitress we had on this night was outstanding. Every time someone’s glass was close to empty, there was suddenly a full glass whatever sitting right next to it. He seemed to be reading our minds throughout the night, bringing more bread, butter, knowing when we wanted something extra, or knowing when you might need her for anything. At the end of our meal, I picked up the check saw with the amount was, and gave her a $20 tip; don’t tell my wife. She was surprised, and I told her that she was one of the best waitresses I had ever had.

Sometimes it’s hard for us to define just what it is we believe good customer service is. In a sense, good customer service is being willing to go that extra step, that extra mile, in hopes of earning a $20 tip, so to speak. That $20 may manifest itself in many different ways, such as praise, repeat business, promotions, a raise, or many other things. Nobody he is anyone anything for free; in some way, we all earn whatever it is that we get.

So, when was the last time you or your company earned a $20 tip?

(originally published November 10th, 2005)

I went to a seminar yesterday presented by a speaker from Seattle, Judy Veasie, who’s also the editor for the healthcare receivables newsletter for Aspen Press; they’ve printed a number of articles written by yours truly. I was proud because I got her here, and she was very good. The overall presentation was on how medical entities can get paid sooner from insurance companies, and some of the tricks of the trade that she’s discovered over the years.

One thing she said I had never thought about before, but it’s something every consumer who has a health insurance plan through an employer should consider. She stated that her organization keeps track of how insurances pay and who the employers are, and when they start having continuing difficulties they contact the employer to let them know how the insurance company is, or isn’t, paying on their claims. Each year, employers get with health insurance plans to try to find plans that take care of their employees, and when they hear continuing bad reports on their insurance policies, they tend to bring that information back to the insurance companies as complaints.

Another part of this is that employees need to go to the human resource departments to complain when it seems their insurances aren’t covering their bills without problems. Many people seem to think that, whenever claims aren’t getting paid, that the hospital, or physicians, are the ones at fault. Sure, sometimes that’s the case, but not always.

Insurance companies will find interesting ways to not pay claims, and many times, they’re invoking some reasons that are patient related, and not always true. Some examples of this are: the claims weren’t coded correctly; we’ve requested additional information from the patient/guarantor; in processing because the premiums haven’t been paid by the employer. Not that these may not be legitimate, but every once in awhile an insurance company gets called on a lie that some customer service representative has stated; our speaker told about not only recording phone conversations, but having the patient being a part of the call so the patient could hear what the insurance company said first, then dispute it right then and there and have a customer service representative attempt to do a quick about face.

Patients who have employer based insurance do have some powers they may not have known about. I’ve just given away a nice secret.

(originally published October 31st, 2005)

Two weekends ago, I did something I rarely do. I went back to a store that had given me really bad customer service. There was something my wife wanted, and it turned out that only two stores in the area carried this particular item, and they were in total opposite directions from each other, and I was under time constraints. So I went back to this store, not expecting much, and I was surprised. The person in this area gave great customer service, showed us everything we needed to know, and some things we didn’t know we needed to know. He was attentive, and treated us like the first customers he’d ever had. It was an amazing turnaround from the last time I’d been in the store.

It’s not often that any stores get a second chance after making a really bad impression on a customer. For most of us, we need to make sure we get it right the first time, and every time after that, because customers usually have many other choices. If it had been just for myself, I still wouldn’t have gone to this store. But I’d do anything for my wife, so I acquiesced. And I’m glad I did; I guess, sometimes, a second chance can be earned.

Either that, or make sure you become an exclusive for something!

(originally published October 19th, 2005)

One thing I’ve never done is made a very good friend, only to lose that friend because something bad has happened. I’m usually a very good evaluator of people, for the most part, and if something is going to happen, I’ve usually figured out that there was that possibility way in advance, and am a little bit wary until that thing happens.

That’s called intuition, and most of the time I listen to my intuition. It’s kept me out of many possibly bad situations that I’ve heard about later on down the line from those who didn’t get the same intuition. I think it’s intuition that leads you to hire either the right person or the wrong person most of the time.

I say it that way because, sometimes, someone seems just too good and you can be fooled by that. I only hired someone who interviewed very well, and seemed perfect for the position, so much so that the other person who interviewed with me thought we’d found the most perfect person in the world. We hadn’t; she was a disaster from day one, when she actually called in sick for the week, and the department didn’t recover until I finally, mercifully, let her go 4 months later.

The issue then was that I was looking for someone specific, and this person said everything I wanted to hear. In general, though, you’re not usually looking for something when either a bad or good feeling about something comes up. If that’s the case, you should always go with your feelings, because your own history is telling you what to do. That’s why we have experiences, so that our inner selves can help us out when we’re not consciously thinking about something.

So, listen to yourself; if you don’t, then you shouldn’t expect anyone else to listen to you either.

(originally published July 12th, 2005)

I’m always reading stories on how much healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, and how hospital charges are astronomical. I’m not necessarily going to debate this one, but I am going to briefly justify why hospitals might charge as they do, and what usually happens.

Most hospitals in the country are losing money; those are the facts. Hospitals lose money for two main reasons. One, mismanagement; two, because of lousy reimbursements from insurance companies.

Mismanagement can take on many factors, from bad budgeting to not keeping up with what’s going on in today’s world to bad charging practices to paying too much in expenses and physicians and nurses and unions and whatever, etc.

When it comes to getting paid by insurance companies, most hospitals rely on the reimbursements from very few payers (sometimes spelled as “payors”) for the bulk of their cash. Those insurance companies are Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross, and whatever the largest HMOs are in that particular area. Most of these folks pay on what’s known as a fee schedule, which means that they’ve somehow predetermined how much they’re going to pay the hospital for the service that’s being provided. Some of these insurance companies will pay the hospital a percentage of what the hospital charges.

Hospitals have a few ways of setting their charges, but the main intention is to make sure they cover their costs, and then make a bit of profit on top of that. Just for clarification, you have for profit and non profit hospitals. Each is trying to make a profit, but the difference is that non profits put the profit back into the facility, whereas for profits put the money into the pockets of its investors.

In either case, hospitals almost never get paid what they bill out; sometimes, what they get back is as little as 25% of what they bill out. We all read about people without insurance and how they bare the brunt of hospital charging, and to a degree it’s true, because they don’t get the upfront discounts that insurance companies get. However, every person has the opportunity to apply for some kind of hospital charity care, which many do and receive, and in at least 50% of the cases people get discounts that drastically reduce what they have to pay, and in some cases they get the entire claim written off. Every hospital has postings that tell people how to try to obtain charity care, and hospitals write off millions each year.

So, if hospitals are writing off so much, they have only a few ways to try to recoup some cash. Prices will often rise so that they can maximize how much cash they’ll get from those insurance companies they’ve contracted with to pay a percentage rate. Insurance companies that don’t have contracts with hospitals end up paying more, or passing more of the costs on to their subscribers, and unless the patient qualifies for a nice discount, which many patients who have some kind of insurance don’t usually do, the hospital will end up getting more money from this combination than any other combination of hospital billing.

Is it fair? Well, probably not. Then again, hospitals are expensive propositions. Physicians don’t come cheap, and who’d want to go to a cheap doctor? Malpractice rates are skyrocketing because of all the lawsuits, some deserved, some frivolous. Expenses are growing, and technology is better, but more costly. Did anyone mention the cost of pharmaceuticals?

Gone are the days where hospitals are making mega profits, no matter what the thoughts of the many might be. Oh, the stories I could tell! But that’ll be for another day.

(originally published May 9th, 2005)

I just wrote a letter to a friend of mine who says she’s tired, and can’t find the time to do what she wants to do. Here’s a little bit of my response:

There’s this thing about time; we never have enough. Sometimes there may be enough, but we’re not in the mood to use it wisely, or maybe we’re just tired and don’t feel like it. We all go through that; even me. But if we want to progress, move forward so to speak, we must attempt to do at least a little bit here and there, select what’s important enough to devote time to, and try to get to the rest when we have a chance.

Yeah, I’m tired; but I do my bit, lay down and rest, read, come back and do my bit,… etc. Eyes on the prize, so to speak. I want to be rich and successful; I want to keep in touch with my friends; I want to keep in touch with people who may end up helping me get national business of some sort, and help them as much as possible also. Just have to have something you want at the end of the journey, and that helps you to spark yourself in some way.

We all do get tired from time to time. But if we fall into the trap of giving in to that tiredness, which is usually more mental than physical, it’s like the concept of the dark side of the force taking control of your life. That’s a fate I never want to say I gave in to.

(originally published May 25th, 2005)

Central New Yorkers are a hearty bunch, but we don’t get enough credit for it. We don’t have the best weather in the world. We average 279 cloudy days a year. In the Syracuse area we average 120 inches a year; within 60 miles there are places that average almost 400 inches a year or more. I don’t know if we’ll ever really be worried about drought conditions in our area. I remember the year it snowed at least to some degree 44 straight days; I remember the year when, in September, it rained 29 of 30 days (I remember that because on day 30 this large tree couldn’t take it anymore and fell towards my parents house when I was still living at home, luckily missing it).

Having said that, I think we’re hearty because many of us don’t live our lives exhibiting the weather. We go on about our business, having learned to live with it, and we get our enjoyment out of the day, no matter what we’re put up against. Even me, to a degree, as much as I hate rain.

However, I’m out of town right now, down here in Westchester County, and it’s somewhat different. It was pretty cloudy all day here, and all I heard was how cold and gloomy it was. People weren’t smiling; I wasn’t really used to that, because I’ve seen very little of it while I’ve been out of town. Then again, this is the first truly rainy day they’ve had in the last month. There was one period when it rained 15 minutes one day, then the sun came back out, and another period where it rained overnight; I almost missed that one.

There’s this thing that says we’re all supposed to be responsible for our own feelings. Sure, outside factors might influence them to some degree, but how we deal with those negative outside factors tells more about how we’ll deal with anything bad that comes our way. Do you see big problems or little problems; how will you solve those problems, no matter how you feel about them? Will you even try if you see them as much to big?

Try asking us how we deal with all the snow. Who remembers the blizzard of ‘93, when we already had upwards of 5 or 6 feet already on the ground, and the flooding that followed a month later? Who remembers the microburst on Labor Day ‘98 that knocked power out for some people upwards of 3 weeks? Who remembers the ice storm of 2003, days before the Syracuse Orange won the NCAA national championship?

We got through; we persevered. What few of us really did was complain; it was just another day. And after each one of those events, the sun came out; there’s the major lesson to be learned.

(originally published November 2nd, 2005)

A few days ago, I had one of my newsletter subscribers write me to say that I seemed to run into a bunch of problems as I go through my days, and that I should be thankful to have a pretty nice life. I had to think about it for a short bit, because I do have a pretty good life, wonderful in fact; was I complaining about things?

No. The truth is that I happen to be somewhat aware of things that happen in my life, or the life of others, and I file it all away so that I can use them to try to impart my points of view, whether it’s in my newsletter or here in my blog. When one decides they’re going to write anything, they need to decide whether they want to be clinical or heartfelt, or a mixture of the two. Style is one of those things that every person has, and everyone has a different style. One person’s style is not for everyone; even the Harry Potter books have critics (I’m not one of them, though).

There’s an interesting quote I’ve seen that I believe most people need to try to live by at times. When you want to take a chance to do something that could turn out to be spectacular, but you’re worried about what someone else might have to say, think of this one: We should all be like the weather, because it never responds to criticism. Go out, take a chance, and become a success. When you get there, don’t forget to invite me to the party.

(originally posted January 14th, 2006)

I was having a brief discussion with a friend of mine through email on the topic of whether it’s viewed as negative or positive if someone is having a good time, when others may view that same action as being over the top and somewhat embarrassing. She was saying how she and a small group of people were laughing it up and enjoying each other’s company, while many others, I guess the overwhelming majority, seemed to hold onto their deportment and not want to break ranks with the majority. However, it was a holiday party, not a networking or business event (well, it was a company holiday party), so many of the people knew each other.

What may seem like a cop out answer is really more reality than anything else; it depends on how you get to that good time. To me, if you’re inebriated, stoned, or out of control due to factors that indicate you have no control over your actions, then you’re probably kidding yourself in calling that having a good time. If one is in total control of their actions, or at least mostly in control of their actions, then who cares what anyone else is thinking?

It’s an interesting discussion on perception, both from others and yourself, in situations like this. I wrote in tonight’s newsletter how I tend to carry myself differently in public than I do when I’m surrounded by my friends. Truth be told, I can only think of 3 times when I’ve actually let myself go in my adult life, and that was when I got married and the two big parties my wife and I have thrown. I have my reasons for changing up, and I’m not going to get into them right now. However, some would say that I’m not being myself, or honest with others, because I don’t act the same all the time.

And there’s the truth; no one should act the same all the time. Everyone should be themselves when it comes to their values, but if you don’t know that, at a business dinner, you can’t jump up on a table with a lampshade on your head one evening, then not expect those people to view you differently the next day. If you do, you’re not thinking logically. At the same time, if you go to a pool party and end up being the only one not wearing a swim suit, whatever the reason, some might view you as being a stick in the mud also.

Ask yourself this question each time; do you care what someone else thinks at that moment?, or the next day? If you can’t live up to your own values, then why have them? If you did live up to your own values, then why care what anyone else thinks?

We’re all accountable for our own actions, positive or negative. But positive and negative aren’t always a constant. You get your chance every day, at every instance, to evaluate your actions. If you can live with them, then go for it.

(originally published January 8th, 2006)

I ran into a business networking associate at a store on Friday night. We had a short conversation, during which he made a statement along the lines of my not really being able to ever claim true success if I couldn’t define my marketplace.

Of course, I have defined my marketplace; it’s every and anybody who decides they want to partake of any of the events, services, or products I have, no matter which type they are. There’s this perception by many that one can never have true success unless they define their market quite specifically. I tend to disagree with that perception, for more reasons that one.

I fully understand one part of what they’re saying; it’s hard to market to everyone. Companies with large budgets can do it via TV or radio or magazines. But for smaller businesses, like mine, we can’t afford those types of venues. I also can’t afford to send letters or mailers or flyers to everyone; I have to be more specific in those ways.

However, I don’t agree with the part about exclusion. If I market only to businesses, what happens to the individuals who might want to take part? If I market only to individuals, what about companies? If I only market healthcare, what happens to diversity and leadership?

Finally, what gives anyone else the right to define my success? What criteria am I supposed to use for everyone else’s purpose? Are we all supposed to define our happiness by what someone else has to say? Do most of you, or any of you, wish to allow someone else to define these types of things for you?

Let me say this; 2005 was a very good year for me. In my mind, it was a very successful year, more than I could have ever asked for or expected. And I did it my way, which makes it all even more meaningful. It doesn’t mean we don’t learn something from others, because I’m always trying to learn as much as I try to educate. But in the long run, I’ll make or break by my own standards. And I like to think those standards are fairly high, and hopefully noble.

How are you defining success today?