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03/03/2023

Hite Digital Founders Share Success Secrets on Best Practices Spotlight Episode! Listen in LIVE now!

14/02/2023

In this episode of The Marketing Center of Excellence Best Practices Spotlight, Lane Houk sits down with Jonathan Bannister, CEO of Cornerstone Marketing Solutions, and Build Your Team outsource staffing solution for agencies and host of the Home Service Hustle podcast. Jonathan is a marketing veteran with over 20 years of experience in the industry and has a wealth of knowledge to share with our listeners.

21/11/2022

Google's algorithm has long rewarded great content because it is always seeking "people first" content. That is , content written for real people, the target audience. The latest algorithm update was a "broad core update" and will have impact well into the future. This article is more of a mini white paper on the topic and provides practical tips on how to create killer content for both people and the bot.

Google recently rolled out the helpful content update. But what does that mean? Google has always rewarded great content. We break it down in this article.

20/02/2021

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) talks to a private security guard at the airport security check point at the Cancun International Airport before boarding his plane back to the U.S., in Cancun, Mexico, February 18, 2021. (Stringer/Reuters)

Ted Cruz went to Cancun during a crisis in his home state and initially gave a lame excuse for it. Obviously this is comedy gold for our friends on the Left, and I’m glad they’re having a good laugh over it. The pictures are amusing.

But: real talk. This isn’t much of a story. It’s not about policy. It’s not about corruption or breaking laws. It’s not even about hypocrisy unless Cruz admonished Texans that they’re obligated to patriotically freeze in their homes even if they have the means to go somewhere else. (Nancy Pelosi’s trip to an indoor hairdresser, unmasked, when it was both unlawful for indoor hair salons to do business and for customers to patronize them without masks was, on the other hand, both hypocritical and also contrary to health regulations. She asserted that she was owed an apology and whined that being caught amounted to a “setup.”)

Cruz’s Cancun jaunt, on the other hand, merely made him look insensitive to other Texans. It was a faux pas, a rake-stepping, a political face plant for a guy whose face was widely considered pretty punchable already. This may be juicy gossip, but that’s all it is. It’s a stretch to call it a scandal.

As usual though, our guardians of the truth are embarrassing themselves and making themselves look at least as punchable as Cruz in the childish glee with which they are “covering” — meaning amplifying, commenting on, and generally exploding in spasms of ecstasy about this story. I count seven pieces on this in the New York Times, 17 pieces on CNN, and a mind-boggling 27 pieces in the Washington Post (so far), many of them clickbait meta-stories commenting on the fact that others are commenting on it: “How Cartoonists are roasting Ted Cruz’s Texas-to-Cancun getaway,” etc. The WaPo has also been kind enough to proffer such advice such as “Why Ted Cruz should’ve known this was a bad idea.” I kinda think people already had that one figured out.

Original source

Ted Cruz went to Cancun during a crisis in his home state and initially gave a lame excuse for it. Obviously this is comedy gold for our friends on the Left,

20/02/2021

The pandemic has certainly increased providers’ appetites for value-based contracting. Three-quarters of survey respondents said they plan to take on more value-based contracts as a result of the crisis.

Early on in the pandemic, it became clear that health plans offered a financial buffer for health systems because they generated steady income from premiums even as revenue from surgeries and other patient-care services plummeted. Moreover, value-based contracts, which take many forms but effectively pay providers to keep patients healthy rather than based on the number of services they provide, emerged as sensible solutions during times of uncertainty.

Atlantic Health’s value-based strategy was its “saving grace” during the pandemic, Gragnolati said. The health system’s contract with Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Jersey features downside risk, which requires having the ability to marry claims and clinical data.

“That gives you a base of data analytics that’s spectacular,” he said.

Atlantic Health even used that data to study how flu normally migrates in its communities to predict how COVID would spread. Gragnolati said the predictions were “spot on.”

While very few payers in Baylor Scott & White’s market offer capitated contracts, Hinton said the pandemic has certainly accelerated the movement toward value-based care. That’s because the federal government is responsible for more patients’ care under public programs like Medicare and employers are looking to drive their healthcare costs down.

“All those roads lead to a continued reduction of open-ended, fee-for-service reimbursement and more experimentation in the realm of value-based care,” he said.

The crisis has also spurred more investment in outpatient facilities as some patients continue to shy away from hospitals. Half of respondents to the survey said the pandemic has prompted them to add more outpatient facilities such as ambulatory surgery centers, urgent-care clinics and free-standing emergency departments.

Health systems have invested heavily in ASCs in recent years as both insurers and patients push for less expensive options, a recent Modern Healthcare analysis found.

Froedtert, for example, has always been light on hospitals for its size and conscious of pushing care into outpatient settings.

“COVID has fundamentally shifted the way patients are going to access some modes of care and we think we’re well-positioned for that,” Jacobson said.

While Carilion’s Agee said her system also plans to invest in more outpatient facilities, she said that’s balanced with the fact that the system still needs to get paid. Outpatient facilities receive lower reimbursement from insurers, but it doesn’t necessarily cost less money to provide services at those sites compared with at a hospital, she said.

“What we’re trying to learn as we’re migrating to ambulatory services is how to perform those services less expensively,” Agee said.

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The pandemic has certainly increased providers’ appetites for value-based contracting. Three-quarters of survey respondents said they plan to take on more

20/02/2021

Texas doctor Natasha Kathuria has practiced medicine in 11 countries, worked through the 2014 “Snowmageddon” storm that ground Atlanta to a halt, and survived the past year’s COVID-19 pandemic crush.

But Kathuria and some other doctors in Texas are saying they have never seen a more harrowing week than this one.

Record-setting cold weather has cut water and grid energy supplies to hospitals across a wide swath of Texas. Electricity and water services were resuming, but many homes and some hospitals still did not have either on Friday. Half the state’s population was under a “must-boil” order to ensure water is safe.

“We’re overwhelmed, way more than we’ve been with COVID,” said Kathuria, who works in several Austin-area emergency rooms. “This system failure has completely rocked us in our ERs – and in our own homes.”

Many hospital staffers have stayed in the medical facilities all week – knowing there was no heat or water at home. At least hospitals have generators for basic electricity. Some had water hauled in to fill tanks or hired water tankers. Others had running but not potable water.

Doctors in Austin, Houston and the Dallas area called the lack of water their biggest problem. Dialysis machines do not work without water, surgery equipment cannot be sterilized, and hands cannot be washed.

Dr. Neil Gandhi, an emergency room physician and the regional medical director for the ER departments at Houston Methodist’s seven hospitals in the area, said those facilities were at 90% operating capacity by Friday afternoon. Earlier in the week, two were able to take only emergency patients, Gandhi added.

“On top of the COVID pandemic, this has been a dual trauma event for both our patients and our providers,” Gandhi said.

Ambulances struggled to reach people on roads that were not cleared because Texas cities have few snow plows and not nearly enough salt on hand. Doctors in stand-alone emergency care locations who routinely call the 911 emergency number for ambulances to transfer patients to hospitals had to wait more than nine hours for any to arrive – if they were available at all.

Gandhi said that in Houston this week there were times when entire neighborhoods simply did not have any emergency medical services.

Hospitals set up portable toilets. Inside, patient’s toilets were flushed by tossing in a bucket of water. Less critical dialysis patients delayed treatment, while others limited their time on machines.

Rural hospitals across Texas were not only trying to treat patients under tough conditions, but also serving as de facto “warming centers” for the healthy, said John Henderson, president of the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals.

Even with warmer weather forecast for next week there could still be a sea of broken water pipes and other damage.

“We worried that when the sun comes out and the temperature goes up,” Kathuria said, “that it’s not necessarily the end in sight.”

© 2021 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.

Original source

Texas doctor Natasha Kathuria has practiced medicine in 11 countries, worked through the 2014 "Snowmageddon" storm that ground Atlanta to a halt, and survived

20/02/2021

Noah Syndergaard decided Friday to troll Trevor Bauer on Twitter over Bauer signing with the Dodgers as a free agent after it was reported he had agreed to join Syndergaard with the Mets.

And because Bauer was the guy being trolled, things quickly escalated into a Twitter beef that eventually included Bauer’s agent.

Syndergaard initiated by quote tweeting an image of himself laughing with teammate Robert Gsellman at spring training and making an “Insert punch line here”-type reply to tweak Bauer.

Bauer came back by referencing his apology to Mets fans after joining the Dodgers — and also adding a reference to Thor’s continuing rehab from Tommy John surgery.

When mistakes are made, you try to make them right. I know you wouldn’t know anything about making mistakes though. Hope rehab is treating you well. Was good to see you back throwing. https://t.co/MI0Clq567u

— Trevor Bauer (トレバー・バウアー) () February 20, 2021

MORE: Bauer, Ronald Acuna Jr. grill up juicy Twitter beef

But Bauer being Bauer, he decided to press on. It took him about 10 minutes to dig up an unflattering exchange between Syndergaard and a social media user.

While that was happening, Bauer’s agent Rachel Luba, who ran point on negotiations for Bauer’s three-year, $102 million pact with LA, entered the chat:

Lol was this an attempt at “throwing shade”…

— Rachel Luba () February 20, 2021

Also, did we say “Dig?”

From there, the exchange quickly got tired, to the point of exhaustion. Bauer offered a sophomoric retort to the “dig” dig, Syndergaard came back with a drone reference (see: 2016 ALCS between Cleveland and Toronto), and then Bauer had the last word.

It’ll be tough for Bauer to become a more hated Dodger in Mets fans’ eyes than Chase Utley, but if anyone can do it, then he can. And, well, Syndergaard is expected to be back on the mound before New York and LA meet at Citi Field in mid-August.

Maybe Syndergaard’s aim will be better this time around. It’ll be sweaty in New York for midsummer, but he’ll have had six years to figure out how to get a grip.

I’m not a fan of pitchers hitting or throwing at people, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not excited for Mets-Dodgers: Ass In The Jackpot 2.

— Jesse Spector () February 20, 2021

We hear that pine tar helps with that.

Original source here

Noah Syndergaard decided Friday to troll Trevor Bauer on Twitter over Bauer signing with the Dodgers as a free agent after it was reported he had agreed to

20/02/2021

The Lincoln Project is hanging by a thread. The scandal surrounding cofounder John Weaver’s sexual harassment of young men has prompted numerous employees and associates to resign. Some have even suggested the super PAC be shut down so that wealthy liberals can direct their donations to other, less controversial Democratic-aligned groups.

Among the Lincoln Project’s few remaining diehard soldiers, this message has fallen on deaf ears; a siege mentality prevails. In the words of adviser Stuart Stevens, the “battle is just beginning.”

Recent Stories in Politics

In recent days, the Lincoln Project has taken a number of steps in an effort to placate anxious donors and to continue as a vehicle for the “generational wealth” of its remaining founders. The law firm Paul Hastings was hired to conduct a “comprehensive review” of the Lincoln Project’s “operations and culture.” The firm’s credibility, however, has already been undermined by the fact that several senior partners are Lincoln Project donors.

Earlier this week, the Lincoln Project announced the formation of a “transition advisory committee” comprised of “core members of our leadership team who will ensure we institute the right formula for success and address the critical concerns that have surfaced about the organization.” That’s odd, given that many of those “critical concerns” involve core members of the Lincoln Project’s leadership team.

Scandal-plagued entities often take similar steps to appear transparent while simultaneously exonerating themselves of any wrongdoing. For example, a law firm hired by Gov. Ralph Northam (D., Va.) was unable to “conclusively” determine whether Northam had worn blackface (or a Ku Klux Klan robe) in a photo on his medical school yearbook page.

Given that Northam is still the governor of Virginia almost two years after the photo surfaced, the Lincoln Project would certainly like to follow his example. In the meantime, the Lincoln Project has sought to move beyond the reported accusations that its senior members knew about Weaver’s predatory behavior for almost a year before taking action to address it. The group has even returned to doing what it does best: tweeting edgy memes about Republicans.

Stevens has been particularly eager to fill the void left by Rick Wilson’s uncharacteristic silence on the popular social networking website. He has made a number of claims that were brought to the attention of the Washington Free Beacon Truth Squad, including the following:

“Washington insiders are threatened by [the Lincoln Project] because it disrupts status quo.”

FACT CHECK:

The statement is nonsensical on its face but is exactly the sort of talking-point word salad you might expect from the architect of Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign in 2012. The Lincoln Project spent the better part of the 2020 cycle making the case that Joe Biden, who has served in federal office since 1973, should be the next president of the United States.

Like many of his Lincoln Project colleagues, Stevens has worked in politics his entire life and is a regular guest on CNN and MSNBC. Living in Vermont does not make him any less of a “Washington insider.” Perhaps a look at the Lincoln Project’s donors will reveal a coalition of scrappy outsiders dedicated to status quo disruption? Here’s a brief summary:

$1.9 million from Senate Majority PAC, dedicated to “building a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.”

$1 million from Stephen Mandel, billionaire hedge fund manager

$1 million from Gordon Getty, billionaire and Democratic megadonor

$500,000 from David Geffen, billionaire and Democratic megadonor

$326,000 from Bain Capital executives

$200,000 from John and Jennifer Pritzker, billionaire scions

$135,000 from Ron Conway, billionaire investor

$120,000 from Martha Karsh, billionaire spouse

$100,000 from Jeffrey Katzenberg, Hollywood producer

$100,000 from Jonathan Nelson, billionaire hedge fund manager

$100,000 from Michael Moritz, billionaire investor

$100,000 from Liz Lefkofsky, billionaire spouse

No one on that list looks like the sort of person who would pose a threat to Biden, Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi—in other words, the good kind of Washington insider the Lincoln Project is striving to empower by acting as a de facto arm of the Democratic Party and its wealthiest donors. Standing up for the little guy, one edgy meme at a time.

Our Verdict: Four Clintons

Andrew Stiles is senior writer at the Washington Free Beacon. He can be reached at [email protected].

Original source

The Lincoln Project is hanging by a thread. The scandal surrounding cofounder John Weaver's sexual harassment of young men has prompted numerous employees and

20/02/2021

President Joe Biden participates in a CNN town hall in Milwaukee, Wis., February 16, 2021. (Leah Millis/Reuters)

By creating conditions that could lead the Federal Reserve to slow the recovery, President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief and stimulus proposal might stop the benefits of an expanding economy from reaching low-wage workers.

According to my calculations, economic output will be around $335 billion below its underlying potential for the final 10 months of 2021. Under the conservative assumption that every dollar of stimulus would generate 50 cents of economic activity, the president’s proposal would fill the output gap nearly 3 times.

This would add to the considerable demand-side inflationary pressures already facing the economy this year. Those include households sitting on $1.6 trillion of excess savings and the $900 billion stimulus Congress passed just two months ago that has yet to be fully spent. More people are vaccinated every week, and as the virus fades this summer households may go on spending sprees. Pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and the need for the economy to reallocate labor and capital to the post-virus “new normal” will inhibit the ability of supply to keep pace with demand. There will be considerable upward pressure on prices.

All this likely will be occurring against the backdrop of a robustly growing economy and a falling unemployment rate.

There is significant uncertainty about the response of consumer price inflation to these factors. Economists do not adequately understand how inflationary pressures affect expectations about inflation, or how expectations about prices and actual prices affect each other. It may be that the economy can absorb this degree of fiscal stimulus and proceed through the end of the pandemic without large increases in prices. The future paths of GDP, employment, and the output gap are all unusually uncertain, as well.

But there is a real possibility that inflationary pressures will lead to actual inflation. Much of the debate has focused on the possibility of the U.S. entering a new, sustained inflationary regime. This would obviously be problematic. But more benign scenarios could be problematic, as well.

Trend inflation rising, say, 50 basis points above the Fed’s 2 percent target would be a welcome policy victory. But inflation would become front-page news if that trend were coupled with a month here and a month there of 4 or 5 percent price growth. It would be the talk of market participants. Congress might hold hearings.

In addition, the big boost in income from the president’s stimulus plan would balloon households savings above its already elevated levels. This will cause asset prices to continue to rise. The Fed would become increasingly concerned that excessive demand was fueling financial market bubbles.

In the face of this dynamic — trend inflation above target, occasional spikes in monthly inflation data, and concern about financial market bubbles — the Fed could quickly begin to feel that it had fallen behind the curve.

In this situation, the Fed might try to slow the pace of the expansion without ending it. But confidence in the Fed’s ability to fine tune the economy is misplaced. When the unemployment rate goes up a little, it tends to go up a lot.

Prematurely ending or slowing the post-virus expansion would create the risk that low-wage workers would be left out of the recovery. The U.S. experience in the economic expansion following the 2008 financial crisis and Great Recession makes clear that a rising tide does lift all boats — but that that process takes some time. This highlights the importance of keeping the post-virus expansion going as long as possible.

In a new paper with economist Jay C. Shambaugh, I study the economic expansion that officially began in the summer of 2009 and ended in March 2020, when the pandemic and lockdowns began. During this period, inflation-adjusted wages on average and at the top (the 90th percentile) were always above their level in 2007, when the Great Recession began.

Following the Great Recession, the economy began growing in 2009. Had that expansion ended in 2014, real wages at the median and 20th percentile would have fallen below their 2007 levels.

From my new paper with .

Paper here: https://t.co/hxAnGxCLFi pic.twitter.com/RWCBoxNulc

— Michael R. Strain () February 16, 2021

Contrast that to wages at the middle and the bottom. Wages at the bottom (the 20th percentile) fell until 2014, and median wages fell until 2012. The median wage didn’t return to its 2007 level until around 2014, and it took the 20th percentile wage a year longer to recover from the financial crisis.

The upshot is that if the expansion from the Great Recession had lasted five years, ending in 2014, then the bottom half of workers would have seen their wages fall during the recovery. They would have been worse off when the recovery ended than when the Great Recession began.

Fortunately, the recovery from the Great Recession was the longest expansion in U.S. history. By 2019, real wages were up relative to 2007 by around 15 percent on average, 13 percent at the 20th percentile, and 7 percent at the median.

For the sake of the bottom half of workers, our goal should be for the expansion following the Pandemic Recession to beat that record. An expanding economy is the best jobs program we have.

If the president’s $1.9 trillion proposal were better targeted on low-wage workers and low-income households, then the risk of overheating and prematurely ending the current expansion might be justified. But it isn’t, with large sums of money intended for the middle class.

Overheating is not a certainty. It is a risk. But it could lead to truncating the length of the expansion — and excluding lower-wage workers from its full benefits. That risk is not worth taking.

Michael R. Strain — Michael R. Strain is the director of economic-policy studies and the Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute.




Original source

By creating conditions that could lead the Federal Reserve to slow the recovery, President Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic relief and stimulus proposal might

20/02/2021

Veterans Affairs officials said they are seeing some groups of veterans turn down opportunities to get the coronavirus vaccine, but it’s not necessarily the individuals they expected to have trouble convincing.

“In communities of color, we’re actually exceeding what we are in the white population of America,” said Dr. Richard Stone, acting head of the Veterans Health Administration, in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee on Friday. “I’m really pleased at how black and Hispanic veterans are accepting the vaccine.”

For months, health officials have warned that convincing minority groups across the country to get the two-shot coronavirus vaccine may pose a special challenge. A recent report by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota seeking to find out why Blacks have been less likely to take the vaccine found several factors have played a role in stoking lack of trust.

“Between mistrust, misinformation, and COVID management that has not always protected the most vulnerable (think inequitable test allocations and vaccination sites), how surprising is it that black communities have lower vaccine acceptance?” the study’s authors asked. A December Associated Press survey found that only 24 percent of black Americans and 34 percent of Hispanic Americans planned to get the vaccine, as opposed to 53 percent of white Americans.

But Stone said that thankfully VA has not seen that predicted problem. Instead, the most reluctant groups in their work so far appear to be rural veterans, who may already face significant challenges with health care access and vaccine availability.

“In one area of New York alone, over 1,000 veterans over age 75 said ‘no thank you.’ And that surprised us,” he said.

Kameron Matthews, assistant under secretary for health at VA, said officials have begun pulling together focus groups on the reasons behind the vaccine hesitancy because “our rural populations across all age groups are showing differences that we definitely need to address.”

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The department has already administered about 2 million vaccine doses since mid-December. In some locations, nearly all VA staff and high-risk veteran patients have already completed the two-dose regimen.

But Stone said getting the vaccines to veterans in rural areas remains a “Herculean effort,” especially considering that the initial versions of the vaccine require supercooled temperatures for storage.

“This has been a tough one,” he said. “”We are not doing as well with rural veterans and reaching them as we would like to.”

Members of Congress speculated that the issue with lower vaccine acceptance in rural areas may not have to do with mistrust, but instead with travel issues.

Even as mobile veterans centers have helped push VA’s totals to more than 300 distribution sites across the country, reaching a vaccine appointment can still be an hours-long drive for veterans, many of whom are elderly.

Stone promised further investigation and improvements in the weeks to come. The department expects to distribute vaccines to nearly 7 million individuals in coming months, covering nearly every veteran who is an active user of VA health care services.

However, lawmakers expressed concerns that other veterans who do not regularly use VA medical care but do not have access to the vaccines elsewhere may be left wanting. Stone said decisions on that will be left to vaccine availability.

“Our ability to reach this veteran population is entirely based on the supply,” he said. “Our desire to get the vaccine into as many veterans as we possibly can.”

More than 220,000 patients being tracked by VA have contracted coronavirus in the last 11 months, and more than 10,100 have died from virus-related complications.

Original source

Veterans Affairs officials said they are seeing some groups of veterans turn down opportunities to get the coronavirus vaccine, but it’s not necessarily the