Pricing transparency is the latest buzz word that basically means hospitals putting all their prices somewhere so people can see what they’re charging for services. It’s controversial for more than one reason. On one hand, back in the day hospitals weren’t allowed to share their prices so openly because of possible charges of collusion, which means that they could be accused of working with each other to control the markets by negotiating with each other how they were going to charge for items. On the other, healthcare is one of the few businesses where people find out after they’ve had services performed how much they’re on the hook for.

Anyway, many hospitals and physicians have decided to address this issue by putting their list of charges, known as a charge master, out on the internet, basically trying to show that they have nothing to hide. However, what’s happening, which was indicated in the story I linked to above, is that the overwhelming majority aren’t taking advantage of the information anyway. In the first year of Doylesberg Hospital in Pennsylvania setting up a process where patients could call to find out the price of services, they’ve averaged less than a call a day.

Does this mean that pricing transparency doesn’t work? Well, in a nutshell, yes. Does it mean that hospitals should continue the status quo? Not necessarily. The thing with hospital services is that there are many where it works out well in telling people how much it’s going to cost for their services. Most ancillary services such as lab and radiology services work very well.

Surgical and inpatient services are a different animal entirely. Surgical rates, as far as those performed in hospitals, are often billed on time, and though a hospital can estimate the time to some degree, it always depends on the surgeon and if any complications arise. Some surgeons are faster or slower than others, so prices can vary. Also, all supplies on implanted items aren’t the same. Pacemakers, for instance, can run from $2,000 to $30,000, and it depends not only on the condition of the patient but a physician’s favorite items to use. And one can only guess just how many supply items a physician is going to use during a procedure.

The same type of thing goes for inpatient stays. A hospital can tell people how much their normal room rate is a day, as well as how much for a private room, but there are different rates for different rooms, and if you get moved to ICU, a room with a ventilator, a radiation room, etc, the prices all differ. The lucky thing for most inpatient stays is that almost no one these days pays actual charges; the unlucky thing is that the amounts can still be pretty high.

Anyway, price transparency isn’t going away any time soon. Politicians are starting to get into it, and of course they’re getting it wrong, and things are going to get messed up. Truthfully, the best thing most people can do for themselves is to go see their physicians while they’re feeling pretty good and get routine check ups. Healthcare costs stay low when you know what’s going on with your body, and if diseases and other problems can be addressed earlier, life will be pretty good.

Frankly, I’m not sure what I think about this. It’s the first time any branch of the federal government has apologized to black people in America for slavery (though President Clinton did sort of apologize to Africans for slavery and did apologize to the victims of the Tuskegee syphilis study), acknowledging, in their own words:

“African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow — long after both systems were formally abolished — through enormous damage and loss, both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and opportunity.”

Of course, the vote was non-binding, which means the government isn’t saying that they’re so guilty that they have to pay anyone reparations, as if anyone is asking, nor are they confirming so much that someone who might decide they want to get paid can sue them, saying the government confessed to anything. Still, it’s an interesting step forward, in the year of the Obama candidacy, and I’m wondering what the fallout will be from this.

Guess I’ll wait and see like everyone else.

First, let’s get this out of the way; this wasn’t a program for black people. That was evident from the beginning, and later on, almost every black person I talked to said the same thing: “I knew all of this already.” For black people, there was little new ground that was covered; for me in particular, though, I still thought it was an important program to show, and though it’s also easy to say “they should have shown this” or “they should have shown that”, overall it was a credible enough representation, if people were paying attention.

I say it that way because of a conversation I was having with someone who didn’t see the show. I was talking about a statistic that came up during the show when it was posted that the number one killer of black women between the age of 25 and 34 was HIV, and he said that it must indicate that a lot of single black women are being promiscuous; ouch! That’s not what it was saying at all, but it points out how some statistics are be interpreted in different ways, and one meant to highlight a problem could be interpreted as “people are getting what they deserve based on their behavior.”

Half of the black people I talked to said the show should have said more about what could be done about some of the inequities; I said that’s not what the show was supposed to be about. In my mind, this was a snapshot of the different things black people in America go through because they’re black, not because they’re poor or uneducated or any other reason.

There were some good things also, such as showing the one little boy who gets great grades while getting paid to learn and gives half of his money to his dad to help with bills. I even liked the first story on the first half of the family where the patriarch of the family had a white wife and a black mistress, had many children by each woman, and now they get together in a large family reunion after many years of not acknowledging each other. After all, life isn’t all bad for black people; thank goodness for that.

I could talk about it some more, but the truth is if you saw the show then you know all the stories, and if you didn’t then you’re probably not going back to watch it. I wonder overall how white people took this story, and how they cared, if they cared. Was there anything surprising in this story for you? Was there anything that made you think that you wanted to help people? Was most of it alien to you? Did you think the people in the story were mostly responsible for themselves and should get off the couch and get to work (though, I hope you were paying attention to the second part, where many black men were trying to get jobs)?

This was an important show, even if it couldn’t be a complete show. Will it start a conversation, or will it disappear from people’s minds within a couple of weeks? Let’s see how things play out; I’m betting on the latter, though.

So, the article is obviously about customer service, and in that article I take the position that management is often the most responsible for making sure that good customer service is happening with their businesses.

Last week, I conducted a meeting at the site I’m consulting at where I talked to one of the supervisors about monitoring the customer service of the department, important because this particular department is on the front line of the business when people come into the facility.

The point I made was that sometimes, to get good customer service, management needs to get the employees enthusiastic about the work they do because it all boomerangs after that. When employees feel good they work good, and if they interact with the customers they impart good feelings upon the customers, and when customers feel good, they not only come back but they tell their friends about their experience and everything works out well in the end.

Why is it that people don’t put out exactly what it is they want in life anyway? We all want good customer service when we go places; why can’t we remember that when it’s our turn to serve?

Speaking at the software monopolist’s annual Worldwide Partner Conference, Brad Brooks, Microsoft’s VP of Vista consumer marketing, publicly confessed, “We broke a lot of things. We know that, and we know it caused you a lot of pain. It got customers thinking, hey, is Windows Vista a generation we want to get invested in? We’ve faced these challenges before, and we’re going to solve them again,” Brooks said. “There’s a conversation going on in the marketplace today and it’s just plain awful. We’ve got to get back on the front foot.”

The company claims that 77,000 devices work under Vista today, twice as many as at launch, and that 99 per cent of the major business applications are compatible with Vista. For some people, they’re saying it’s about time; for others, they still don’t care.

Customer service is a dicey proposition at any time, and the perception Microsoft gave when it released Vista is that it didn’t care for its customers as much as its bottom line. It started out with their basic system needing way more power to work properly than most people already had on their computers. Sure, there was information out that told people they might need to beef up their computers, but not only did the general public not get that message, but apparently many computer makers didn’t get the message either, as they installed Vista on new machines that weren’t powerful enough to run it properly.

The next problem was their creation of four different versions of the same product, each one more expensive than the other (the initial version costs $300), but the initial version, the one they were marketing to the general user, didn’t have any of the things that Vista was touting as the reason it was so special in the first place. That was disingenuous and condescending to its main customer base.

The only reason a company like Microsoft gets a free pass into getting another shot as often as it does is because it’s still the big dog in the computer world when it comes to operating systems. Imagine most of us treating our customers with such disregard and being able to woo those customers back our way time after time as if we were the only ones who offered those products. It reminds me of Seinfeld and the Soup Guy; would any of us be ready to accept abuse time after time just to get a particular product?

We’re not infallable, but we always need to make sure we try to put our best foot forward at all times when interacting with the customer, even when the customer isn’t right. And who knows, maybe one day we’ll all grow to be big enough to get away with customer abuse; if I do, I still won’t do it.

How many people have seen the Tonight Show with Jay Leno? He often goes out on the street and asks Americans questions to every day things that we all hope most people know, but it turns out they don’t know. Most people are either really not that bright or aren’t paying any attention to current events. These are the people who vote in elections based on personality and charisma instead of who just might be the best and brightest person to lead the country. Sometimes the smart people do it to themselves because, if you remember your school days, people who are really smart alienate those who aren’t; I’ve never really been sure why, but it probably explains why the smartest kids either keep to themselves a lot or run the school newspaper.

In any case, I’ve always thought that some of what we see on the Tonight Show was scripted; I just find it hard to believe that people have no idea what’s going on in the world, or where anything is in the world, including the United States. Well, the video below, not from that show but from a British television show, proves that we need to boost up the educational standards of today, and do some teaching on the news also. This is sad,…

When I travel by car, I take a lot of stuff, mainly because I can. I like the convenience of having my own stuff, whether it’s food, drink, or other things. Otherwise, I might as well just fly in and out.

To make sure I remember everything I need, years ago I created a checklist of things I want to make sure I have with me. Some of those things are necessities; who else has gone on a trip and realized they didn’t pack underwear or socks? Some of these things are just because; do I really need a bag of snacks, or soda and water?

These days the most important things I need to remember to bring with me are my pills and, unfortunately, my insulin. The pills are actually easy; with the insulin, since I’m on a pen, I have to always check to make sure I have enough, and if not, then I not only have to remember to transport another pen, but I have to pack it and keep it cool in some fashion so that it not only stays cold, but it can’t be allowed to freeze either, so I can’t just pack it in ice by itself; I have to wrap a towel around it and then pack it in ice. Kind of an inconvenience, but it has to be done.

In business situations, instead of checklists, we talk in terms of procedure manuals. In essence, procedure manuals are step-by-step checklists of how people should perform specific types of jobs or checklists of rules. However, what I see most often when I go into a consulting gig is that there are no manuals around, and I’m left to help educating people on how to do their jobs, while not really having enough time to work on procedure manuals myself because I know I’m not going to be there for the long term.

Still, even without always having the time to create procedure manuals, I do create checklists, because one has to have a plan of attack when working on getting things done, and helping to keep remembering everything that has to be taken care of. Checklists are positive ways of highlighting everything that needs to get done.

So, what’s on your checklist?

Sometimes, this same type of thing happens in a work environment. You find one problem, decide to investigate it a little bit more, and suddenly, before you know it, you have a “clutter” of an issue that’s going to take many steps and many people to fix. I have known a lot of people who, when they see the first few things will shut their eyes, act like the problem doesn’t exist, and go in a different direction, leaving the problem to someone else.

It’s never fine to do that, but it’s worse when you’re going to be around for a long time and may have to deal with this issue later on. Not only that, but what many miss is that they can look like a hero by identifying the problem, and then having some kind of idea on how to resolve it. True, many times the people at the very top hate having problems brought to them, which is a shame, but they love it when the person bringing the problem also has a fix.

Every single time, things can only get better, even if there’s a step, or multiple steps, backwards for a short period of time. But one can’t legitimately avoid issues and problems forever. And it’s best to take your best shot at the time you find them rather than waiting for them to possibly escalate. When it’s all been taken care of, you’ll be amazed at what you’ll see. And you’ll probably be happy also.

What is news, though, is some of the things this study, presently residing on BlackAmericaStudy.com, has found. For instance, around 71% of all blacks are online, and my personal demographic, baby boomers, has the highest rate of online users. I’d have thought younger people would surpass us, as they do in the general population, but nope.

Another one that was sort of shocking is that 91% of black people consider themselves Christian, but only 46% go to church; not sure why I thought that number would be higher.

One that isn’t shocking is that a high number of black people, 72%, want to invest more money into stocks, but 50% feels banks and other financial institutions don’t understand their needs.

Only 12 - 16% trust the police, government, or other institutions of the same type.

And this piece is disturbing:

• This segment is more pessimistic in their view of their life and future.

• Health: Only 17% believe they have a healthy lifestyle and 49% are stressed about their health.

• Finances: 4 in 10 earn less than $25K a year and nearly a quarter are unemployed.

• It is not surprising that 65% are stressed about their financial situation.

• Future: Only 20% believe things are getting better for them (by far, the lowest
segment).

There’s a lot more information that can be downloaded from the site above, and I hope you take a look at it. Oh, one more thing; it would seem that 51% are more comfortable with being referred to as “African-American” rather than “black”; interesting,…

If there’s anything that can start to get me upset, it’s constantly being interrupted when I’m talking. I don’t mean when someone is looking to clarify something I said, necessarily. I mean when you’re trying to say something, or ask a question, and the other person interrupts me to start answering a question I haven’t finished asking, or throwing in detail that I haven’t had a change to give yet. I think it’s rude, but it also proves something else.

Many of us have lost the art of listening. Studies have shown that most people are usually ready to respond to the first few words a person has said and are already working on their response while a person is still saying their piece. This means that, quite often, we miss out on something that might have made our responses more pertinent, and oftentimes people end up either asking someone to repeat what was just said, or giving an answer to a question that wasn’t really asked, confusing everyone.

I came across something like that this week while out of town. In essence, I learned that the people where I am have been doing something for close to seven years that they never had to do. My supposition is that someone mentioned something way back when that someone else decided to run with, then they went to clarify what they’d been told and either asked the question incorrectly or the person answering the question either didn’t wait to hear the whole question or decided to just answer the question that was asked without further probing. This has caused my client to lose a lot of money over the years doing something that they never should have done in the first place.

I’m a pretty good listener, but I’ll admit that there are times when I’m not quite understanding what I’m being told. The art of communications says that sometimes it’s not the listener’s fault, but the listener always has the opportunity to ask for clarification if they’re not sure what the other person said, or is having trouble comprehending it. That happened to me today, where I had someone tell me three times what she was told to do some time ago, and the third time she changed it up slightly and I finally got it. I was listening hard, but her terminology and phraseology wasn’t jibbing with mine, which was leaving me confused. That happens sometimes when you’re in another state and realizing that different words are often used for the same thing.

Of course, if I hadn’t been listening, I wouldn’t have known to ask her to say it again, and the answer I eventually gave her wouldn’t have been close to correct. Listening always gives you a chance to get things right, and it makes the person you’re listening to feel as though they’re a valuable commodity in their eyes. Good leaders and managers have mastered the art of listening.

Of course my wife will tell you that I don’t always listen to her. Sure I do; I just don’t always understand her!