Falling Through Two-Way Doors – Empowering Employees to Embrace Risk

We live in a risk-adverse culture. I see this professionally and even at home with one of my young daughters. She’s talented in many areas, but she’s exceptionally hard on herself when she can’t accomplish something right away. In these situations, she becomes discouraged to the point she stops trying. For a child, FAIL is

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Upcoding Crackdown: Federal Efforts Fail to Benefit Private Insurers

For more than a decade, taxpayer-funded health care programs have seen a steady uptick in higher-paying billing codes. Office visits, outpatient services, and emergency room care have all been billed at progressively higher reimbursement codes, raising fees by billions of dollars. Many providers contend the shift is the result of sicker patients coupled with the

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The Road to Optimal Opioid Prescription Length

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that the total economic burden of prescription opioid misuse in the United States is $78.5 billion a year. Most of that burden is related to workplace costs, such as lost productivity, prolonged time on disability, and increased work disability claim costs. To help combat this crisis, organizations

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The Future is Now – Telemedicine in the Marketplace

For years, telemedicine has been touted as the next frontier in healthcare. Based on data from multiple health systems, the future has arrived. Some of the country’s largest and most prestigious health systems such as Kaiser Permanente, NewYork-Presbyterian, and Johns Hopkins now boast robust telemedicine programs. At Kaiser Permanente, virtual patient encounters now outnumber in-person

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The One Litmus Test for Indispensable Employees

It’s no secret executives value employees who are smart, driven and lifelong learners. However, sometimes organizations can get bogged down with too many key performance indicators (KPIs), copious desirable employee traits and overly complex review processes, so it’s nice to have a quick, “back-of-the-napkin” measure of employee value. According to businessman Mark Cuban, the secret

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WD-40 Learning Maniac: Lessons from a Learning-Obsessed Culture

Continued learning and education is a topic I frequently find myself revisiting. Ongoing exploration, innovation, and resourcefulness are three key ingredients needed to become and maintain a fast moving organization. This Harvard Business Review article about WD-40 – yes, the stuff you use for squeaky hinges – illustrates just how important continued learning is for

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The Paradox of Expertise

Why did no one in the taxi industry create a phone app to improve the ride ordering process (Uber)? Why didn’t Sear’s dominate online sales (Amazon)?  Why didn’t the Big Three auto companies design the first really innovative electric car (Tesla)? Expertise and experience should be a competitive advantage when it comes to innovation. Yet, the

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