Doctors didn’t think it was possible to loathe the world’s biggest health care profiteer any more. Then came the hack that set half their bookkeeping systems on fire.
Get ready for clay tablets and possibly cuneiform record keeping. I saw this coming from a mile away before health records and billing were due to go live online, and everyone pooh-poohed my alarms. We can’t go back to all paper, we’re still squandering life-breathing trees. But a lot of this is simply board members and C-Suite not allocating enough dollars for proper hardware, software, and strongly knowledgeable minds to implement good security.
But a lot of this is simply board members and C-Suite not allocating enough dollars for proper hardware, software, and strongly knowledgeable minds to implement good security.
The stolen data was encrypted, so all the hackers were doing was stopping business from being run. With that being said, if you think it’s just about ‘implementing good security’ I think you’re out of depth when it comes to just how large of an attack vector it is and how sophisticated the attacks can be. We’re talking about an industry where people are willing to cough up millions of dollars to recover data in some cases, meaning that it attracts some of the best talent in the world to coordinate attacks and the attacks can be extremely sophisticated.
Sure. Allow me to give you a little background about my area, from personal experience a hundred years ago in the industry: security by obscurity was the standard, a CTO had zero experience with anything computer related, beyond powering his on and pecking out emails, was not interested in learning about (let alone learning any) current or new technology, coding, or security related. The sysad couldn’t code a lick, depended on an online scanner for malware removal (and it was a persistent problem), and did absolutely zero auditing, wondering why the better team members stayed long enough for a reference and ran screaming. This was the worst, but not by much, company I worked for in the industry in a very wealthy area. I’m sure things have changed over the years, but from friends in the industry, not by much. They still stay long enough for the reference of official experience, then end up moving companies, or the better ones go on to self-employme t, often contacting for the same companies, at 4x the hourly rate, because it’s still cheaper than getting sued by by clients or the government.
The weird thing is, I’m about to try to re-enter the industry, personal and industry issues aside, at a later point in the year.
The author of this article has a clear bias and lets this bias lead their perception of accountable care organizations (ACO), despite it being perhaps the only existing lever within our system by which preventative and population health measures can actually be adopted. This complete misread of ACO and VBC (value based care) makes it difficult to view anything else the author says with credit. Which is a shame, because a fair deal of this history I’m familiar with and I completely agree that UHG is a fucking capitalistic nightmare plague on US healthcare costs.
Is the author saying that ACO and VBC were decent ideas that got UHG’s fingers grafted into the legal structure, or are they just saying that ACO and VBC are bad in general?
And I knew that we had some awful structures within our healthcare system, but I LOATHE UHG and didn’t realize that they OWN our medical system. Disgusting.
To me it sounded like they were saying ACO and VBC are both bad. In fact, it kinda felt like they were attributing their creation to UHG as some kinda malicious moneymaking scheme.
I’m not sure how to answer your question in a manner which doesn’t touch on the same points the author brings forward. Was something they said unclear or are there parts of my comment which you’d like me to elaborate upon?
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Get ready for clay tablets and possibly cuneiform record keeping. I saw this coming from a mile away before health records and billing were due to go live online, and everyone pooh-poohed my alarms. We can’t go back to all paper, we’re still squandering life-breathing trees. But a lot of this is simply board members and C-Suite not allocating enough dollars for proper hardware, software, and strongly knowledgeable minds to implement good security.
The stolen data was encrypted, so all the hackers were doing was stopping business from being run. With that being said, if you think it’s just about ‘implementing good security’ I think you’re out of depth when it comes to just how large of an attack vector it is and how sophisticated the attacks can be. We’re talking about an industry where people are willing to cough up millions of dollars to recover data in some cases, meaning that it attracts some of the best talent in the world to coordinate attacks and the attacks can be extremely sophisticated.
Sure. Allow me to give you a little background about my area, from personal experience a hundred years ago in the industry: security by obscurity was the standard, a CTO had zero experience with anything computer related, beyond powering his on and pecking out emails, was not interested in learning about (let alone learning any) current or new technology, coding, or security related. The sysad couldn’t code a lick, depended on an online scanner for malware removal (and it was a persistent problem), and did absolutely zero auditing, wondering why the better team members stayed long enough for a reference and ran screaming. This was the worst, but not by much, company I worked for in the industry in a very wealthy area. I’m sure things have changed over the years, but from friends in the industry, not by much. They still stay long enough for the reference of official experience, then end up moving companies, or the better ones go on to self-employme t, often contacting for the same companies, at 4x the hourly rate, because it’s still cheaper than getting sued by by clients or the government.
The weird thing is, I’m about to try to re-enter the industry, personal and industry issues aside, at a later point in the year.
The author of this article has a clear bias and lets this bias lead their perception of accountable care organizations (ACO), despite it being perhaps the only existing lever within our system by which preventative and population health measures can actually be adopted. This complete misread of ACO and VBC (value based care) makes it difficult to view anything else the author says with credit. Which is a shame, because a fair deal of this history I’m familiar with and I completely agree that UHG is a fucking capitalistic nightmare plague on US healthcare costs.
Genuinely curious:
Is the author saying that ACO and VBC were decent ideas that got UHG’s fingers grafted into the legal structure, or are they just saying that ACO and VBC are bad in general?
And I knew that we had some awful structures within our healthcare system, but I LOATHE UHG and didn’t realize that they OWN our medical system. Disgusting.
To me it sounded like they were saying ACO and VBC are both bad. In fact, it kinda felt like they were attributing their creation to UHG as some kinda malicious moneymaking scheme.
What’s aco? urgent care?
Accountable care organization. VBC = value based care.
I know how to read an abbreviation… Looking to understand what they actually do within the corruption scheme
I’m not sure how to answer your question in a manner which doesn’t touch on the same points the author brings forward. Was something they said unclear or are there parts of my comment which you’d like me to elaborate upon?
What job do they actually do?
You suggested they are not corrupt. I am trying to understand where you are coming from?