SATHYA

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Medical Profession --- ethical business or unethical business tactics

Medical Profession --- ethical business or unethical business

Doctors are next to God and people believe them totally, and follow their instructions without any doubt about the treatment or medicine when they are critically ill. The profession once called as a noble profession and they take care of the health of the people and will not give any medicine without purpose. They will never ask you to do the clinical test unless it is so warranted. It is green in my mind, every household will have a family doctor and he knows about the entire family history.

In the 1990s the doctor profession has changed into business but with ethics. There is specialization and the charges were gone up but everything is within a limit. When we go to a doctor, he will be able to diagnose us by checking our pulse and lab testing are at a minimum.

After 2000, there comes corporate hospitals and the hospitals were built like star hotels and the profession has really become a unethical business. As soon as you go a doctor, the first thing they will ask for a variety lab test whether it is required or not and the treatment will start only after that. The medicines prescribed to us are also at exorbitant cost and the medical treatment becomes unaffordable for many. I am not generalizing the statement but the good compassionate doctors and hospital are reducing day by day. There is the specialization for every part of the body and science has advanced a lot and medicines are available for every kind of illness. With profit-making being their main motive, private hospitals are pushing doctors through a system of incentives and disincentives to over-bill using whatever means – ethical or unethical – they can think of. Targets are also fixed for each doctor and they are forced to achieve the same. One of the reasons for such action is due to the increased cost of medical education with the number of seats in the Government college are limited and many medical aspirants opt for private medical colleges by paying exorbitant capitation fees. This makes doctors vulnerable to the whims of private hospitals that pay good money to their empanelled doctors – needed to recover high investments in medical education.

Now let us see the cases reported regarding excess charges, wrong treatment, carelessness etc.

Some of the common tactics used by money-minded Indian doctors to cheat or fleece gullible patients of their hard earned money are:

Prescribing more tests than necessary - to be done at preferred labs for hefty commissions. There are instances that the test is not conducted only a fake result is given.
Keeping you admitted at hospital rooms even if you’re fit to be discharged.
Prescribing expensive medicines/vaccines when cheaper and quality substitutes are available.
Charging patients at different rates for the same treatment according to the room they select.
Fake operations
Use of stent in heart disease treatment even if not needed – 1 stent may cost a patient anything between Rs. 60,000 -100,000 or more depending upon the status of hospitals or pockets of gullible patients.

Gynecologists at private hospitals are well-known to force pregnant women to go for C-section which pays better than normal deliveries.
Last but not the least, is luring poor and uneducated people for agreeing to donate organs, kidney in particular, for which there is no dearth of high paying customers as highlighted by the arrests at Hiranandani Hospital in Mumbai and Apollo in Delhi.

There are only a few cases reported and become public. Many a time we blame it on our fate. The recent incidents are as under.

Case No.1

Fortis Gurgaon marked up medicines, consumables billed to dengue patient as much as 1,700%. The markups were the highest in consumables at as much as 1,737%. Around 96 types of consumables were used on the patient. For medicines under price control, Fortis marked up the prices between 5% and 350%. For those not under price control, the family was billed anywhere between 10-200% more than what the hospital had paid distributors for the products. Consumables like some brands of disposable syringes were billed at a maximum retail price of Rs 200.

Action initiated by the Government

The government of India has made tremendous efforts to reduce prices of life-saving medical devices and medicines which are still being heavily charged by hospitals. As per law, packaged commodities cannot be charged over their maximum retail price or MRP.

Do we know the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Agency has classified the following devices as packaged commodities and the price of these medical devices are capped?

ü Stents,

ü Angioplasty catheter,

ü breathing circuit,

ü balloon device,

ü fabric natural fiber,

ü guide wire,

ü IV catheter,

ü hands-on gloves

ü and blood collectors etc.,

By classifying under the category of packaged commodities it is strictly prohibited from being sold over their printed MRPs. As a consumer, we should aware of this information.

Further, Prices of several medicines have been fixed under the National List of Essential Medicines 2015 and the medical devices rules of 2017 have brought various regulations to control the price and make it more affordable for patients in India.

How to Proceed if Hospitals overcharging for services

In cases we observe that the hospital is over changing us, then we should initiate a complaint against the hospital enclosing the copies of the documentary proof including bills and prescription in writing to the Management of the hospital to enable them to take corrective action immediately. If you do not get any favorable response, then we can file a complaint with the Local Medical Officer of the Government for redressal.

The Insurance Company is to be informed to enable them to rectify the cases of overcharging as they are also affected party of overcharging.

We can contact the Office of the Controller of Legal Metrology in our state either through a letter or an email and the State or Central Health Ministry which can address our concern. Finally, we should take up the matter with the Medical Council of India and the Drug Council of India.

Besides all, a complaint may also be filed with Consumer court for redressal. For all the above action we required keeping the following documents to prove our case

Ø Prescription of doctor for the patient.

Ø Bills from the hospital.

Ø Proof of market price or MRP of the particular product.

Ø Receipts with the signature of hospital representatives.

Ø Identity proof of the patient.

The way forward

ü Medical Council of India must come with the system of standardizing treatment protocol. They should also conduct surprise checks at the hospital and take action against the unscrupulous doctors/ Hospitals.

ü The Hospitals and treatments should be more transparent so that excess charges can be avoided.

ü Increase the seats in the Government College to make the education an affordable one.

ü Mandatory recording, archiving and sharing of the recording with patients or their representatives.

ü The data regarding the successes rate of each specialist regarding their performance.

ü Government may also consider a regulatory authority for the private hospitals/doctor to control and monitor their performance and take action against defaulters.

Conclusion:

Whatever, we discussed, there are some practical difficulties in fixing the Doctor and Hospital as it is so technical and decisions to be taken at a difficult situation and there may not be any time left with the doctor to discuss the issue and take a calculated risk in treating a patient. We only pray God that he should prevail on them to understand the noble profession they have selected while treating the patients.

Saturday, December 16, 2017

IS SOCIAL NETWORK SITES -- A BOOM OR A CURSE

How to have a safe and protected social site

We are all using social media and share all information over it. We are also worried if our posting has not received any likes and comments and happy if we receive more comments and likes over our postings/ pictures. I will take an example of FACEBOOK. Many a time, we put like over a posting on facebook without knowing the meaning of like. We come across the situation where a like has been accorded for obituary posting.

We share our personal information on facebook which includes our mobile no, address, blood group, our entire job profiles, education and institution where we worked and date of birth. It is done with an intention to get connected people with whom we have worked or studied. We do add friends to Facebook without any discrimination.

We use it to connect with far-flung friends and family, send quick messages to co-workers, and announce major (and minor) events in our lives. Many businesses use social media sites to collaborate or share information—for instance, we might discuss a project with co-workers via a Facebook messaging session or plan a conference on a LinkedIn forum. Employers and schools are increasingly using social media to reach out to potential employees and students as well.

Is it good or bad? Will it any time used against us.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 16 million US residents became victims of identity theft in 2012 alone. With more and more of our identities taking shape on social media, protecting our personal information on these sites has become more important than ever. Here are several ways to keep our personal information safe while still enjoying the benefits of making social media connections:

1. “about me” fields are optional.

Facebook gives the option to record all information about ourselves from our date of birth to our present status of the job. It is not necessary that we need to fill it up all in “about me”just because these fields are offered. Just fill in general version of information to complete the form. For instance, listing only our state of residence, instead of both city and state, can make it harder for others to figure out exactly where we live.

2. Understand privacy settings.

All social media sites give us the option to limit post-viewing to specific audiences. We need to understand these settings of Privacy to restrict ti specific audience. For instance, both Facebook and Twitter let we create custom lists of people who are allowed to view specific posts. As we get better at using the privacy settings, bear in mind that not all privacy settings “translate” into websites. For instance, some Facebook users have reported that photographs they set to “private” on Facebook were still indexed publicly in Google Image Search—and could be found by searching for their names. If we don’t want it found publicly, don’t post it!

3. know our friends (KOF)

Earlier, we compete with other users to have the largest number of connection/ friends and for this, we will be going on adding people as our friend without any discretion. But today, we review it and delete them who we do not know. Further, We also evaluate the friendship request to know whether he was any time work in an organization where we worked, or friend of any of our friends, or studies in an institution where we studied. Make sure we know the people we add on social media, in real life if possible. Don’t hesitate to use the “block” feature when the situation seems to call for it.

4. Understand “off-limits” list.

There are certain pieces of personal information we should never, ever post such as the PAN card number, Aadhar card No, our bank account detail and our specific location etc. Tagging our specific location can seem fun, but announcing to our friends that we are at the beach for the day also announces to strangers that we are fifty miles from home. We are seeing people tagging the location and Face Book started tracking them continuously and inform to the world at large about our activities, This may turn against us and we may not know the implication/ consequences of letting everyone know about our activities.

5. Log out and close the page.

If we’re using a public computer, make it a ritual to log out—but log out of private devices from time to time as well. Logging out helps ensure that other people won’t “commandeer” our social media profile and use it to attack our friends, change our personal information to embarrassing or slanderous comments, or worse, change our password and lock me out of our own account entirely.

6. Password –effective one

Always use a strong password combining words, numbers, upper- and lowercase letters, and special characters that is easy to remember, but tough for other people to guess. Never use common password element viz. birthdates, anniversaries, and the names of our children or pets. Keep passwords private by memorizing them—and never write them on the device itself.

Why should we be careful about the Privacy control?. The answer is to protect against the following.

· Personal identity theft

· Banking information theft

· Burglaries

· Potential job opportunities

· Maintaining our business online reputation

· Credit card scams

· Potential college placements for ourself or a family member

· Safeguarding our insurance policy

· Protection from lawsuits or legal issues

· Medical benefit fraud

1. Prevent theft of identity

Identity theft is number one rated cybercrime, with the growing web; many of our identities are being stolen online. By stealing our identity, the person gains access to our personal information, he can be online making every belief that it is we. They can use our identity and commit fraud through various web pages. I have come across the incident that a email has been sent from one of my friend’s email requesting for money as he lost his passport etc and do not have money to even settle the hotel bill. The hotel is kind enough to receive money on his behalf and hand over to him. To my luck, I have met this friend just a day ago and hence, I called whether he has traveled abroad to understand that the email is forged one. It is one a tip of an iceberg. They will find innovative ways of commit fraud using our identity.

2. Protect our banking information.

We all feel safe to do banking transaction online but we need to protect our banking information which we do not bother about. Cybercriminals can take our banking information and make unauthorized withdrawals and transfers. Although banking websites are encrypted, we should still practice privacy protection by changing our passwords frequently and by never logging in unless we are in our protected network at home.

3. Can we post vacation details

We are excited to inform our friends through Facebook about the trips planned by us and we do give all the finer details like date of travel, place, and date of return and people accompany us. We can update such status only our status updates are completely protected otherwise, we are leaving our front door open for the unscrupulous hacker to do the needful. Never share our vacation plans on social networking websites.

4. Employment record what it means

At the employers or the HR consultants are verifying our status updates in Facebook or Twitter. The posting made by us regarding our likes and dislikes about politics, religion or current job may shut the door on future job opportunities. There we should be careful about our posting in social network to keep our record clean

5. Manage business online reputation.

Our Business electronic privacy to be protected otherwise, it will destroy our online reputation.Criminals may take our business information and create fake emails and fake employee’s names and even hack our corporate network system. Protect our Company’s digital privacy by running our intranet on a secure server.

6. Credit card information.

Credit card scams are also on the rise. Many online sites want us to store the payment system wherein the details of credit card are requested. Except for the CVV number all the details are stored on the site to enable us to make the purchase easily without searching for the credit card for its details. If the CVV number is also stored by the site, it will be easy for them to fraud us by carrying out the international transaction. Although for all domestic transactions the PIN or OTP is required, we should avoid keeping our card details in merchant site ot=r for that matter with Google.

7. Will Facebook affect school admission?

In much the same way that our social network status updates and tweets can prevent us from gaining a new job, they can also damage any chances of gaining admission to school or college by us or by our family members. Do not allow Facebook to become the judge and jury of our online reputation. Keep our personal information private.

These above are only some illustrative list not an exhaustive one, it may cut across through legal/ medical/insurance also.

When we’re sitting in front of our computer at home, it’s easy to feel safe while surfing the Internet. Focusing on privacy protection is vital in protecting our personal data both online and off. So, let us keep our personal information private.

Steps

Conclusion

We should know what we share with whom and protect our information. We should also know what we are posting and its implications. We do have responsibly that we should not post any derogatory information, gossip and untrue information about any one on our page even if he is proved as very bad character. While posting picture, we should be careful that our picture are decent and will not cause any problem later. We also need to respect others while making a posting or reply to a post. Everyone has a right to express their views even if it against our views. If some of your friends are posting on the face which are unacceptable to you or inappropriate to the society, please hide the posting or block him permanently.

Let us have good safe social network for us.

Friday, December 15, 2017

12 Pieces of Awful Continuous Improvement Management Advice ---- By Maggie Millard

12 Pieces of Awful Continuous Improvement Management Advice

There are lots of ideas floating around the internet about how to best spread a culture of continuous improvement. I hate to tell you, but lots of them are bad ideas. From making your suggestion boxes electronic to behaving in ways that discourage engagement, there’s a lot of awful advice that should be ignored. Here are 12 pieces of terrible advice - and corrections for each of them.

Spend most of your energy engaging underperformers

On the surface, it makes sense that people would tell you that you should devote the majority of your effort to engaging people in continuous improvement who are not contributing. I suppose the idea would be that high performers don’t need your attention, while low performers do. I posit, though, that you instead spend the majority of your time engaging with people who ARE contributing to your improvement culture. Respond quickly to their ideas, remove barriers to implementation for them, recognize them for their effort, and broadcast their successes. Devoting the majority of your energy to the positive behavior of your employees will strengthen those behaviors in high performers, and encourage those who are not yet engaged to get on board. Of course, you can’t completely ignore the population that doesn’t participate…but I would suggest drawing them into your culture with positive reinforcement, rather than attempting to force participation with a heavy hand.
It’s only worth your time to implement the best ideas

I’ve lost track of how many suggestion systems I’ve heard of in which it’s recommended to implement only the best ideas (typically rated so because of their high impacts). These people have it all wrong. A successful culture of continuous improvement implements at least 80% of the improvements its employees come up with - even if they’re small, with a low impact, and seem insignificant to management. Why is that? By empowering people to improve all of the little things that bug them every day, you’re increasing their job satisfaction, and likely the quality of your products, services, and customer satisfaction, too. Small, low cost, low-risk ideas pave the way to widespread change.
Voting ideas up or down is a good way to engage your employees

This one really gets my goat. There’s a lot of technology out there that combines an electronic suggestion box with social engagement in the form of voting, which is the completely wrong approach to spreading improvement. In this approach, people submit their ideas for improvement and then wait for their peers to vote the ideas up or down. The negative consequences of this are plentiful, including a decrease in engagement from the people whose ideas are voted down, and fewer improvements are implemented since only the best are accepted (see #2). It also decreases the overall number of ideas submitted, since people are less likely to submit ideas that are unlikely to “win.” No matter how you look at it, this is terrible advice for a culture of continuous improvement.
You need to train everyone in process improvement tactics before getting started

This is perhaps one of the biggest delays in getting started with a culture of continuous improvement. Yes, it’s true that there need to be some process improvement experts guiding the leadership and methodology behind the spread of improvement. But most people just need a basic understanding of what process improvement is, how it will help the company achieve its strategic goals, and what their role and responsibilities in the culture will be.
Save time by only reviewing employees’ ideas in a monthly meeting

I hate folding laundry. My approach to solving this problem is to wait until someone is completely out of clean clothes, and then I do it all at once. This saves me time because I only have to put the clothes away once (and I only have to do something I hate once a week).

This is absolutely the wrong way to approach continuous improvement. The result of letting ideas pile up like dirty laundry is a decrease in engagement, as people lose enthusiasm for the ideas they submitted weeks ago. Leaders of continuous improvement need to respond immediately to employee input, even if it feels more efficient to do it sporadically.
Focus on ideas with a financial impact

Even the most well-meaning, well-informed leaders of continuous improvement make this mistake. After all - lots of organizations turn to improvement in order to improve their bottom line. The thing is, though, that by limiting your employees to ideas with a financial impact, you’re eliminating a significant number of improvements. Employees typically participate in a culture of continuous improvement because they want to enjoy their jobs more, increase safety, produce better goods or services for your customers, and make your customers happier. They don’t necessarily think of the bottom line on a daily basis, and that’s ok! Financial impact follows on the heels of a well-balanced culture of continuous improvement in which safety, employee and customer satisfaction, and quality are valued.
Your managers will have the best improvement ideas

Your managers may have a deeper understanding of the organization’s strategic objectives or financial goals, but it’s the employees who best know how to improve their work. Makes sense, right? They’re the ones doing it... Harnessing the collective brainpower of your staff rather than over-valuing the input of managers will increase the engagement and impact of your improvement culture. Ask your staff how they’d like to improve the organization, empower them to make those improvements, and reward them for their efforts.
Keep track of implemented improvements in a spreadsheet

This piece of advice comes from the right place, but the devil is in the details. It IS important to keep track of all of the improvements you’ve made so that knowledge isn’t lost over time. However, a spreadsheet is not the place to do it. Unlike a spreadsheet, continuous improvement software is easily searchable and employs notifications to remind people to follow up on and update old improvements.is accessible to everyone, anytime. It provides impact and engagement metrics to keep track of where more coaching is needed and doesn’t get forgotten or out of date.
You need to provide employees with financial incentives to increase participation

Every time I write about recognizing and rewarding employees for participating in continuous improvement, the topic of financial incentives invariably comes up. This isn’t always terrible advice - some forms of financial incentives can work out alright as long as you couple them with intrinsic motivation and other incentives too - but as a general rule, I suggest steering away from cash. The problem with cash incentives is that people focus too heavily on that, rather than on improvement for improvement’s sake, and you lose opportunities for improvement that people know won’t get a cash reward. It can also hamper collaboration. Instead, try social incentives like public recognition and broadcasting improvements and their impact. These will reward the engaged employees, with the added bonus of attracting people who have not yet participated.
Frontline staff engagement is optional

Lots of companies claim to have a culture of continuous improvement because they do projects and/or events on a regular basis. Top-down improvement initiatives like Rapid Improvement Events, Kaizen Blitzes, and Value Stream Mapping events are awesome, don’t get me wrong, but a culture of continuous improvement depends heavily on bottom-up improvements, too. Only by engaging front-line employees in the improvement process can you truly spread a culture of improvement.
There needs to be lots of planning and evaluation before implementing ideas

This is terrible advice unless you’re considering a time-intensive, expensive, or risky improvement. If that’s what you’re working on, plan away. Most of the time, though, your improvements will be small, low-cost, and low-risk. When that’s the case, don’t bog down the improvement process by making employees jump through hoops. If there’s minimal downside to giving the improvement a shot, let them get started right away.
All ideas are either implemented or rejected

The last piece of awful advice I have to share with you is that you either have to implement or reject every idea your employees have. Lots of organizations make this mistake, which means they have a pretty low implementation rate (which is bad for all of the reasons discussed above). The solution here is to look deeper at the opportunities for improvement people bring forward. Chances are, they’ve identified a real opportunity, even if their proposed solution is less than ideal. The correct way to deal with this is to help them find a better solution by providing additional coaching or connecting them with others who can help. You don’t have to implement every solution that comes across your desk… but you do have to address every opportunity for improvement.

This article is from https://blog.kainexus.com/12-pieces-of-awful-continuous-improvement-management-advice. This impress me a lot.

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

ELECTORAL BOND

ELECTORAL BOND

Electoral Bond, a brainchild of the present Union Government was announced in the Budget 2017-18 along with the reduction of cash funding by a single anonymous donor to Rs. 2000 from the existing limit of Rs, 20000. It was proposed that it will take effect from Apr 2018. The reason attributed to this scheme is to bring in greater transparency in the funding of political parties.

Before implementing the above measures, the section 13A of the Income-tax act 1961 to be amended that the political party exemption of the donation exceeding Rs. 2000 received through Electoral Bonds. The RBI act also amended to facilitate the introduction of electoral bonds and make RBI as the Intermediary. The Representation of People Act, 1951 also to be amended. The amendments were made through Section 133 to 136 of Finance Bill, 2017.

What is the electoral bond?

It a financial instruments for making the donation to political parties. Electoral bonds will be issued by a scheduled commercial bank authorized by Central Government/ Reserve Bank of India. RBI will act as an intermediary for such bonds. It is a bear bond payable only to a registered political party like a bearer cheque with a specific expiry. The custody of the bond will remain with the bank issuing the bond till redemption by the political party through their designated bank account.

These bonds are issued only against cheques/ drafts/ electronic/ digital payments to the donor. These bonds will carry an expiry date. The bonds cannot be purchased against cash. These bonds can be redeemed at the designated branch of the bank through the designated account of the registered political party within the prescribed time limit from the issuance of the bond. For this purpose, each political party should be designated an account under information to the Election Commission.

The donor will be anonymous for the Political parties and hence they need not submit any details about the donor to the Election Commission or Income Tax.

Why is it important?

Most of the Political parties use the tax regime on donation to accept cash donations from anonymous sources. Nearly 70 percent of the ₹11,300 crore in parties funding over an 11-year period came from unknown sources, according to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

At present, the parties are expected to report to the IT department the sources of donations exceeding Rs.20000. To restrict the cash donation, the Government has reduced the existing cap for the cash donation from Rs. 20000 to Rs,.2000 and also insist that all the donations exceeding Rs. 2000 should be by means of cheques/drafts/ electronic and digital payment.

On introduction of the electoral bonds, the details of the purchaser will be available with the issuing branch of the designated bank and the details of the receiver are available with the bank branch through which it is redeemed. The Bonds are serially numbered and managed by RBI. Hence, RBI will have both the details and will not be disclosed to the public.

What electoral bonds do

Electoral bonds are like cash but with an expiry date. If Company XYX ltd wishes to contribute Rs. 10 crore to political party ABCY’. It could buy one electoral bond of Rs.10 crore from bank ‘A’. These bonds would carry only a serial number and not the identity of the buyer. XYZ Ltd, deposit the bonds in ABCY ‘s designated account with Bank B. Since it is the purchase of bearer bonds and do not have the names of the parties to which they have donated (so shareholders won’t know where their money has gone) it is not clear whether this transaction attract the provision of section 182 of the Company’s which says

a. loss-making companies cannot make political contribution

b. The contribution should not exceed 7.5 % of the average net profit of last three years.

c. The approval of Board of directors is necessary.

d. Disclosure of contribution to the political parties

As for political parties, they no longer need to reveal the donor’s name for contributions above ₹2000, provided these are in the form of electoral bonds. In a nutshell, a foreign company can anonymously donate unlimited sums to an Indian political party without the knowledge of the EC or the IT department. It is difficult to imagine a better instrument to ease the flow of black money into the coffers of political parties.

Danger to democracy

By far the most pernicious feature of electoral bonds is their potential to load the dice heavily in favor of the ruling party. Although the issuing bank only knows the details of the purchaser and the redeeming bank knows only about the receiver but RBI who receives the reports from both the banks will know all the details. These details will be available to the Ruling parties. It is then free to use the organs of the state to gently dissuade (or retaliate against) these misguided donors. This may cause difficulty for the opposition parties to raise adequate funds to put up a fight.

While the reduction in maximum cash donation limit to parties has been welcomed, the proposal to introduce electoral bonds has attracted a fair bit of criticism from various quarters.

Further, it is not clear whether the purchaser of the bond can cancel the sum during its currency and receive back the money if they decided against making a donation to political parties. If the answer is yes, how many times it can be done by the donor to cancel the bond within its validity.

Way Ahead:

1. Let all the donations done through banking/ electronic/digital channels.

2. If all the transactions and accounts being done and used by political parties are regulated under a piece of legislation, it might prove to be more effective and simple. There are many political parties at present which do not file the return every year.

3. Setting aside the election of such candidates against whom there are pieces of evidence of spending black money or excluding them from future elections as a penalty can be a strong measure.

4. Voters have to be made aware through awareness campaigns as often illiterate voters are bribed for votes before elections.

5. It is evident, even after introducing a stringent measure, using the black money for purchasing the votes for cash cannot be ruled out as they will find innovative ways of executing it. In one by-election, the cash is being distributed by calling the voters to another constituency and also through the payment banks.

These measures if taken into consideration seriously along with the will to control illicit funding in elections, some changes can be expected in future.