#Insurance Company Careers

[hillbilly---man]

One thing about me is that if there's a pointless rewards program that most people don't know exists, I'm gonna devote way too much time and energy to it so I can cash in 😈

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

Today in "blatant misinterpretations of songs that I like better", I have decided that Ghost Riders In the Sky is about what happens to you if you stay as a seasonal worker forever

[soullessjack]

ok stop me if I’m wrong bc I just binged the saw movies all the way up to 7 within the past two days but like. I like that John is a hypocrite and his ideology falls through its own cracks and he’s no better than anyone he punishes, it’s interesting as both a character study and as a study in the whole franchise’ running theme and whatever, but at the same time it feels like such a .. pointless aspect to have??

Like there’s nothing to be learned from his hypocrisy, it doesn’t change the game or the legacy he built. And like maybe that’s the point itself, that there is no point, that people are hypocrites and shit is hopeless and broken systems remain broken or whatever and every single one of jigsaw’s victims that were innocent just died for nothing and his apprentices either died or got maimed in the game because they fell through the cracks in his philosophy or cracked it even worse with their own ..

Idk it’s such a nihilistic approach to the franchise but like. Yea Idk . Words

[ghoul-haunted]

:)

[allalrightagain]

It's all fun and games projecting my health stuff onto DIWF until I have a chapter to work on and I spend 3 hours fighting with the US healthcare system instead

[dockaspbrak]

Somehow i got a phone interview in my covid week where i decided i didnt care about anything.... hope my voice doesnt go out LOL

[tardis--dreams]

Gotta talk to the department boss tomorrow because i asked for opportunities to increase my work hours. I regret it already but i can't back out now so this is gonna be fun (:

[salt-baby]

yes, doctors suck, but also "the medical ethics and patient interaction training doctors receive reinforces ableism" and "the hyper competitive medical school application process roots out the poor, the disabled, and those who would diversify the field" and "anti-establishment sentiment gets applications rejected and promotions requests denied, weeding out the doctors on our side" and "the gruesome nature of the job and the complete lack of mental health support for medical practitioners breeds apathy towards patients" and "insurance companies often define treatment solely on a cost-analysis basis" and "doctors take on such overwhelming student loan debt they have no choice but to pursue high paying jobs at the expense of their morals" are all also true

none of this absolves doctors of the truly horrendous things they say and do to patients, but it's important to acknowledge that rather than every doctor being coincidentally a bad person, there is something specific about this field and career path that gives rise to such high prevalence of ableist attitudes

and I WILL elaborate happily

[scientia-rex]

Sometimes people tell me I'm a good person. I'm not a good person by nature, or by default. I'm a good person because I've decided that it's important to me to act like one, on a daily basis, forever.

My actual nature is that I want power. I want power and I want my life to be easy and I want other people to be forced to be nice to me even if they hate me. I want other people to have to suck up to me, I want to watch people who I know hate me suffer through the indignity of having to suck up to me. I want to hurt people who hurt me. I want all of these things in the same exact deeply recognizable way that a gorilla or a chimpanzee does. I watch those documentaries and I recognize myself, intimately. The fact that I can behave like a good person in spite of that has taken me a long time and a lot of effort to achieve.

What you feel isn't as important for your "goodness" as what you do. And you get good at what you practice. So practice your skills at being polite, pleasant, kind. Practice gently interrupting negative behaviors--whether that's someone's negative behaviors directed towards themselves, or directed towards someone else. The idea that we have to be inherently without sin is such Christian garbage. It's psychological gibberish. We want things! We want everything! That is normal and human and the key is not acting on every bad feeling you have.

I have taken my insatiable desire for power and to manipulate people and I have used it for good. I have learned how to manipulate people into coming to the doctor and taking their blood pressure medication and being honest about their recreational substance use. I have taken my psychology education and I have used it to craft a persona that makes people feel at ease. I go home at the end of the day exhausted, because maintaining a persona for ten hours straight is exhausting, but I do it happy, because I manipulated the people I work with into feeling better and having brighter days. I manipulated my patients into feeling good about their achievements and recognizing where we need to do things differently.

The hard part is that when the mask slips, people find it not just off-putting but deeply upsetting. When I explain things like "I have thought very carefully about how I would conduct a career in domestic terrorism because I would genuinely like to bomb the headquarters of most American insurance companies, but I don't see a way to do it without getting caught and either killed or spending the rest of my life in prison, and at the moment I consider that an unacceptable outcome," people go from "ha ha! my wacky colleague" to "Jesus Christ, I didn't realize there was something actually wrong with you."

Anyway, don't make your kids read the extended works on Machiavelli at twelve, my dad thought he was helping me but all he accomplished was making me sad I'll never be a king.

[everytechever]

AIA Philippines Champions Innovation

AIA Philippines innovates and develops solutions to bring ease and convenience to the ecosystems it serves. #HealthierLongetBetterLives #AIAPhilippines #fintech #tech #everytechever

Modern problems require modern solutions, which is why AIA Philippines constantly evolves to address the needs of its customers.  As a testament to its commitment to unceasingly improve its services, AIA Philippines innovates and develops solutions to bring ease and convenience to the ecosystems it serves through its innovation lab, the company’s framework of innovation that encompasses its…

[endlingmusings]

"The Asiatic cheetah is on the brink of extinction due to worsening conditions. Unfortunately, wildlife conservation in Iran is not a top priority for the government, which is under intense pressure from sanctions. These sanctions not only affect the government but also the livelihoods and employment conditions of the people across the country. Companies and factories are going bankrupt, and their workforce is being downsized. As a result, it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep experts at non-governmental and non-profit organizations that are dedicated to preserving wildlife. Individuals are forced to migrate from hope to despair to sustain their paths of career growth and prosperity for themselves and their families. The Iranian Cheetah Society (ICS), which used to have over 50 members, now manages all conservation, educational, and advocacy activities with only six individuals. Among them, we manage to pay a modest salary to only one person and struggle intensely with a shortage of manpower and budget. In the past year alone, three key members decided to migrate. If we are to dedicate more time and resources to the conservation of the Asiatic cheetah, there is no solution other than preserving the few remaining workforce. It is important to note that extinction won’t wait for political issues to be solved. The current supporters of the ICS have somewhat assisted in keeping ongoing conservation activities in the field, despite sanctions and economic hardships. However, the lack of sufficient manpower for field deployment renders project budgets futile, no matter how much they increase. Therefore, this year, we intend to request assistance for covering the salaries of our conservationists and aim to secure project costs from larger institutions throughout the year since they are generally uninterested in covering human resource expenses. According to our estimates, by Giving Tuesday next year, each full-time expert will incur at least 4100 euros in expenses. This amount covers only the salary and does not include insurance and other expenses, which we hope to obtain from other sources. With every 4,100 euros, we will be able to contract a full-time force for one year. We hope to raise a minimum of 8,200 euros from Giving Tuesday to International Cheetah Day this year. You can also contribute by securely donating money through PayPal at HelpCheetah.com or by sharing this message with others, helping us remain hopeful for preserving the Asiatic Cheetah."

- The words of Iranian Cheetah Society CEO Morteza Pourmirzai.

Donate | Learn more

[zattis]

Sizable Security, Inc. (dp x dc thought)

With the ghost attacks at an all time low and the Infinite Realms blessedly calm, a twenty-something Danny Fenton decides to take care of his protection Obsession in a more mundane way: by becoming a bodyguard. A blessed late growth spurt meant that he inherited his father's height, though not his sheer bulk. Still, with an intimidating figure and his fighting knowledge, he figured that it wouldn't be an issue picking up a career as a "protection agent".

He hadn't expected all three (???) of his siblings to join him, starting a family business instead of joining a company that already existed.

Ellie had spent years on the road, traveling across the globe. It had fascinated her, of course, but she found herself missing her family. Going into security with him gave her the chance to go from place to place while being around someone she truly cared about.

Jazz ended up going along with it, rationalizing that keeping making clients feel secure was just as important as actually protecting them, and that she could still put her mind to good use. Not to mention her less chaotic demeanor meant she would usually be seen as the de facto leader of the group.

Then, somehow, Dan ended up joining them, turning their trio into a quartet. He said it was his parole opportunity to go along with them, and while he may relish in the chance to be aggressive, being around Jazz, Danny and Ellie kept him sane and opened him up to show genuine love, in his own way.

As it turns out, having four talented individuals on your payroll, all of whom have some degree of enhanced strength and senses, makes for an extremely valuable service. It also helps when no one in said group is shorter than six and a half feet tall.

Proud & Powerful Protection (the name was Ellie's idea) becomes an overnight sensation, developing a reputation for a 100% success rate and quickly getting booked by just about anyone who can afford them. As a matter of fact, two very wealthy, very public figures employ their services often, with both hoping to hire them full-time.

Lex Luthor sees the quartet as insurance for some of his most valuable employees and yet another one of his secret projects.

Bruce Wayne would rather they take care of his wards, since he's very tired of having to deal with kidnapping and extortion attempts.

Regardless, Jazz, Danny, Ellie and Dan look out for each other, and can pretty easily figure out when their employers aren't telling them everything.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Cigna’s nopeinator

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me THURSDAY (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Cigna – like all private health insurers – has two contradictory imperatives:

To keep its customers healthy; and

To make as much money for its shareholders as is possible.

Now, there's a hypothetical way to resolve these contradictions, a story much beloved by advocates of America's wasteful, cruel, inefficient private health industry: "If health is a "market," then a health insurer that fails to keep its customers healthy will lose those customers and thus make less for its shareholders." In this thought-experiment, Cigna will "find an equilibrium" between spending money to keep its customers healthy, thus retaining their business, and also "seeking efficiencies" to create a standard of care that's cost-effective.

But health care isn't a market. Most of us get our health-care through our employers, who offer small handful of options that nevertheless manage to be so complex in their particulars that they're impossible to directly compare, and somehow all end up not covering the things we need them for. Oh, and you can only change insurers once or twice per year, and doing so incurs savage switching costs, like losing access to your family doctor and specialists providers.

Cigna – like other health insurers – is "too big to care." It doesn't have to worry about losing your business, so it grows progressively less interested in even pretending to keep you healthy.

The most important way for an insurer to protect its profits at the expense of your health is to deny care that your doctor believes you need. Cigna has transformed itself into a care-denying assembly line.

Dr Debby Day is a Cigna whistleblower. Dr Day was a Cigna medical director, charged with reviewing denied cases, a job she held for 20 years. In 2022, she was forced out by Cigna. Writing for Propublica and The Capitol Forum, Patrick Rucker and David Armstrong tell her story, revealing the true "equilibrium" that Cigna has found:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-medical-director-doctor-patient-preapproval-denials-insurance

Dr Day took her job seriously. Early in her career, she discovered a pattern of claims from doctors for an expensive therapy called intravenous immunoglobulin in cases where this made no medical sense. Dr Day reviewed the scientific literature on IVIG and developed a Cigna-wide policy for its use that saved the company millions of dollars.

This is how it's supposed to work: insurers (whether private or public) should permit all the medically necessary interventions and deny interventions that aren't supported by evidence, and they should determine the difference through internal reviewers who are treated as independent experts.

But as the competitive landscape for US healthcare dwindled – and as Cigna bought out more parts of its supply chain and merged with more of its major rivals – the company became uniquely focused on denying claims, irrespective of their medical merit.

In Dr Day's story, the turning point came when Cinga outsourced pre-approvals to registered nurses in the Philippines. Legally, a nurse can approve a claim, but only an MD can deny a claim. So Dr Day and her colleagues would have to sign off when a nurse deemed a procedure, therapy or drug to be medically unnecessary.

This is a complex determination to make, even under ideal circumstances, but Cigna's Filipino outsource partners were far from ideal. Dr Day found that nurses were "sloppy" – they'd confuse a mother with her newborn baby and deny care on that grounds, or confuse an injured hip with an injured neck and deny permission for an ultrasound. Dr Day reviewed a claim for a test that was denied because STI tests weren't "medically necessary" – but the patient's doctor had applied for a test to diagnose a toenail fungus, not an STI.

Even if the nurses' evaluations had been careful, Dr Day wanted to conduct her own, thorough investigation before overriding another doctor's judgment about the care that doctor's patient warranted. When a nurse recommended denying care "for a cancer patient or a sick baby," Dr Day would research medical guidelines, read studies and review the patient's record before signing off on the recommendation.

This was how the claims denial process is said to work, but it's not how it was supposed to work. Dr Day was markedly slower than her peers, who would "click and close" claims by pasting the nurses' own rationale for denying the claim into the relevant form, acting as a rubber-stamp rather than a skilled reviewer.

Dr Day knew she was slower than her peers. Cigna made sure of that, producing a "productivity dashboard" that scored doctors based on "handle time," which Cigna describes as the average time its doctors spend on different kinds of claims. But Dr Day and other Cigna sources say that this was a maximum, not an average – a way of disciplining doctors.

These were not long times. If a doctor asked Cigna not to discharge their patient from hospital care and a nurse denied that claim, the doctor reviewing that claim was supposed to spend not more than 4.5 minutes on their review. Other timelines were even more aggressive: many denials of prescription drugs were meant to be resolved in fewer than two minutes.

Cigna told Propublica and The Capitol Forum that its productivity scores weren't based on a simple calculation about whether its MD reviewers were hitting these brutal processing time targets, describing the scores as a proprietary mix of factors that reflected a nuanced view of care. But when Propublica and The Capitol Forum created a crude algorithm to generate scores by comparing a doctor's performance relative to the company's targets, they found the results fit very neatly into the actual scores that Cigna assigned to its docs:

The newsrooms’ formula accurately reproduced the scores of 87% of the Cigna doctors listed; the scores of all but one of the rest fell within 1 to 2 percentage points of the number generated by this formula. When asked about this formula, Cigna said it may be inaccurate but didn’t elaborate.

As Dr Day slipped lower on the productivity chart, her bosses pressured her bring her score up (Day recorded her phone calls and saved her emails, and the reporters verified them). Among other things, Dr Day's boss made it clear that her annual bonus and stock options were contingent on her making quota.

Cigna denies all of this. They smeared Dr Day as a "disgruntled former employee" (as though that has any bearing on the truthfulness of her account), and declined to explain the discrepancies between Dr Day's accusations and Cigna's bland denials.

This isn't new for Cigna. Last year, Propublica and Capitol Forum revealed the existence of an algorithmic claims denial system that allowed its doctors to bulk-deny claims in as little as 1.2 seconds:

https://www.propublica.org/article/cigna-pxdx-medical-health-insurance-rejection-claims

Cigna insisted that this was a mischaracterization, saying the system existed to speed up the approval of claims, despite the first-hand accounts of Cigna's own doctors and the doctors whose care recommendations were blocked by the system. One Cigna doctor used this system to "review" and deny 60,000 claims in one month.

Beyond serving as an indictment of the US for-profit health industry, and of Cigna's business practices, this is also a cautionary tale about the idea that critical AI applications can be resolved with "humans in the loop."

AI pitchmen claim that even unreliable AI can be fixed by adding a "human in the loop" that reviews the AI's judgments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

In this world, the AI is an assistant to the human. For example, a radiologist might have an AI double-check their assessments of chest X-rays, and revisit those X-rays where the AI's assessment didn't match their own. This robot-assisted-human configuration is called a "centaur."

In reality, "human in the loop" is almost always a reverse-centaur. If the hospital buys an AI, fires half its radiologists and orders the remainder to review the AI's superhuman assessments of chest X-rays, that's not an AI assisted radiologist, that's a radiologist-assisted AI. Accuracy goes down, but so do costs. That's the bet that AI investors are making.

Many AI applications turn out not to even be "AI" – they're just low-waged workers in an overseas call-center pretending to be an algorithm (some Indian techies joke that AI stands for "absent Indians"). That was the case with Amazon's Grab and Go stores where, supposedly, AI-enabled cameras counted up all the things you put in your shopping basket and automatically billed you for them. In reality, the cameras were connected to Indian call-centers where low-waged workers made those assessments:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/29/pay-no-attention/#to-the-little-man-behind-the-curtain

This Potemkin AI represents an intermediate step between outsourcing and AI. Over the past three decades, the growth of cheap telecommunications and logistics systems let corporations outsource customer service to low-waged offshore workers. The corporations used the excuse that these subcontractors were far from the firm and its customers to deny them any agency, giving them rigid scripts and procedures to follow.

This was a very usefully dysfunctional system. As a customer with a complaint, you would call the customer service line, wait for a long time on hold, spend an interminable time working through a proscribed claims-handling process with a rep who was prohibited from diverging from that process. That process nearly always ended with you being told that nothing could be done.

At that point, a large number of customers would have given up on getting a refund, exchange or credit. The money paid out to the few customers who were stubborn or angry enough to karen their way to a supervisor and get something out of the company amounted to pennies, relative to the sums the company reaped by ripping off the rest.

The Amazon Grab and Go workers were humans in robot suits, but these customer service reps were robots in human suits. The software told them what to say, and they said it, and all they were allowed to say was what appeared on their screens. They were reverse centaurs, serving as the human faces of the intransigent robots programmed by monopolists that were too big to care.

AI is the final stage of this progression: robots without the human suits. The AI turns its "human in the loop" into a "moral crumple zone," which Madeleine Clare Elish describes as "a component that bears the brunt of the moral and legal responsibilities when the overall system malfunctions":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The Filipino nurses in the Cigna system are an avoidable expense. As Cigna's own dabbling in algorithmic claim-denial shows, they can be jettisoned in favor of a system that uses productivity dashboards and other bossware to push doctors to robosign hundreds or thousands of denials per day, on the pretense that these denials were "reviewed" by a licensed physician.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/29/what-part-of-no/#dont-you-understand

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Ernst Leitz II

German businessman Ernst Leitz II, owner of the Leica camera company, saved hundreds of Jews from the Nazis by “transferring” them to Leica offices around the world. Ernst inherited the Leica camera company from his father in 1920. It was founded as Leitz Camera in 1869 and later took on the name Leica: Lei for Leitz + ca for camera. From the beginning the company stood out for the compassionate way they treated their employees, many of whom were Jewish. Leica provided health insurance, sick leave and retirement pensions.

After Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, the Nuremberg laws were enacted, depriving German Jews of the rights of citizenship. They were banned from schools professions, and lost many of their most basic freedoms. Ernst Leitz began receiving desperate calls from his Jewish employees, begging him to help them escape.

Leitz hatched a brilliant plan. He began “transferring” his Jewish employees, along with their extended families, to Leica sales offices in France, Britain, Hong Kong and the United States. After Kristallnacht, when hundreds of Jewish businesses and synagogues were destroyed throughout Germany, Leitz’ rescue efforts kicked into high gear. At this point, all of the refugees were being sent to America by ocean liner. Once they arrived in New York they were instructed to go to Leica’s office in Manhattan, where they received a Leica camera and a weekly stipend until they were employed. The Jewish refugees went on to careers in photography, camera repair, sales and marketing.

To save Jews, Ernst Leitz risked the company he and his father had lovingly built over 70 year. Indeed, he risked his entire life.

The Leica Freedom Train operated until September 1, 1939, when Germany closed its borders. The Nazis suspected that the Leica company had been illegally helping Jews escape, but they were unable to pin anything on Ernst Leitz, and instead arrested his top executive, Alfred Turk, who was imprisoned until his boss paid a huge bribe for his safe release.

Even after the borders were closed, Leitz’s daughter Elsie Kuehn-Leitz continued helping Jews escape from Germany. Elsie was captured by the Gestapo while smuggling Jewish women into Switzerland, and thrown into prison, where she endured harsh interrogation and frequent beatings before being released in the early 1940’s. By that point, the Nazis had forced the Leica plant to hire 800 Ukrainian women as slave laborers. Elsie spent the rest of the war advocating for these women and working to ensure they had acceptable working and living conditions, and were treated humanely.

Later to be known as the “Leica Freedom Train”, Ernst Leitz’ bold plan saved the lives of 200-300 Jews.

A rare light in a sea of darkness, the Leitz family never wanted publicity for their heroism. The story of the Leica Freedom Train only came out after the last immediate Ernst Leitz family member was dead.

For their courage and sacrifice, we honor Ernst Leitz and his daughter Elsie as this week’s Thursday Heroes.

[lua-magic]

Self Development and Astrology( Vedic Astrology).

There are four main important houses in Astrology called as "Kendra house" ie one, four, seven and ten.

Rest all other houses are supporting houses.

First 🏠 house, is the house of self and personality. Sun is exalted in first house, because Sun is soul, so if you know your weakness and strength and work on your body regularly ( as Mars has lordship of first house) then no outside enemy can defeat you. And if your body is in good state then you can enjoy all the pleasures of the world..

Fourth house The most important house, once you get defeated emotionaly then nothing can help you, it is said, once, you loose emotionally you loose everything in life

So never depend Emotionally on anyone. Never give control of your emotional body to any one.

Jupiter is exalted in fourth house, because even if you loose everything in life but hold on to your morality, you will get everything in life again.

For native who has their Jupiter in two, six, four and ten it is better if you go in work related to Jupiter like counselling, and teaching, spirituality, and work related to religion.

Next house which is important is seventh House, is house of your focus and attention .

This house tells you, where you give your focus that area will expand, also tells you focus on your partnership or network, because your network is your networth, you finally become like the person with whom you spend most time with

Next house is your house of Karma, or the tenth house If you know what work makes you happy or you do what you enjoy,then you are the most carefree and happy person.

Tenth house is opposite to fourth house, it means, once you work hard, fourth house related things like luxury and comfort will come to you easily.

If you have Mercury in 10th house or fourth house, then would get success when you involve in communication, speech or develop some kind of skill

If you have Venus in fourth or tenth then it is better you do work related to cosmetics, luxury, apparels, textile.

If you have SUN in fourth or tenth then it is better you work alone and independent. You can be good politician as well

If you have Moon in fourth or in tenth then you can get involved in food related job, or in psychology or get in job which has traveling..

Mars in second or in tenth house, then involve in land, property, house, real estate, or in Army, police or in sports. Such natives have so much of energy when someone assigns them task they will finish it fast.

Saturn eighth or in tenth house, should take work as their service,they can go in politics, or in service related industry, here Saturn will give you success slowly with time .

If your tenth lord is in first house, then do work related to self improvement and your body, such natives are great and can achieve alot in their career on their own.

Tenth lord second house, do work with your family, or related to speech and cooking.

Tenth lord in third house, do work related to skill development, sports, with siblings, media, communication, commission.

Tenth lord in fourth are extremely good, because person would get all luxurious and comfort by his work. You can work for masses, also home related job or service.

Tenth lord in fifth is also good, you can go in teaching and learning.

Tenth lord in sixth, you can work in charity, for pets, as doctors, healers, health workers, as auditor.

Tenth lord in seventh, it is better to go for business.

Tenth lord in eighth, research, soy, insurance, Bank, occult, astrology.

Tenth lord in ninth, good, you can go in counselling, teaching spirituality, religious work

Tenth lord in tenth is good, you are hard working and can work in any job.

Tenth lord in eleventh, you can work as free Lancer, create multiple source of income, work in social media

Tenth lord in twelfth, you can work in foreign country, or in foreign company, MNCs, import export, hospital, yoga, meditation.

One, four, Sven and ten are actual spine of your chart and you need to constantly work in these houses, rest all houses are by product.