Here’s a great New Year’s Resolution for any parent. Why not give up trying to run your own kid’s parties, and get the experts in for a change? That way you know that everyone, yourself included, is going to have a really fun time. Professional party entertainment is the ideal stress buster for parents. All you have to do is arrange the food, sit back, and enjoy the fact that someone else is being paid to be the centre of attention.The thing is, very few parents like to be the focus of the attention of a large group of excited children. Come to think of it, very few people full stop like to be the focus of the attention of a large group of excited children. A clown or entertainer, though, is paid to be just that – and he or she has all the tricks in the world up his or her sleeve, to make the experience a fun one. That’s because pro party entertainment has two major things working in its favour: one, the kids don’t know the entertainer personally; and two, the entertainer can do real magic.When a child knows an adult then he or she sees right through any disguise or costume that adult wears. Kids have a very well developed sense of the absurd. If they see an adult they know prancing around in a silly costume they won’t be entertained – they will just lose all respect for said adult and won’t do anything he or she tells them to do. If, though, a child is confronted with an unknown adult in a clown costume, then the child automatically assumes that this adult is a real clown. Pro party entertainment commands the respect and attention of children from the start, because the children do not know the adult under all the grease paint.All kids love magic show. A home grown magic show, though, is about the lamest thing on earth. Just as kids are very good at seeing the “real” adult under a clown costume, or a magician’s hat or whatever, when the adult is known to them – so are they excellent at spotting tricks. Only professional entertainment can get tricks past kids and convince them that what they are seeing is really magic. Professional party entertainment works precisely because it is professional: because the quality of the costumes used combines with the skill of the magician to convince the children at a party that something really unusual is going on.Get a child fascinated and you have won a day full of fun, enthralled kids and no tantrums. The party entertainer does that, guaranteed, every time. That means a whole lot less stress for every parent involved – for whom, usually, a kids party is as much about being afraid that the children will go home over excited and under enthused as anything else. Using professional party entertainment makes sure that never happens – and that means a lot more relaxed adults, which in turn means kids that have a heap of fun at every party they go to.
New Year, New Look Party Entertainment
Getting Term Life Insurance Quotes With No Medical Exam
Getting quotes for term life insurance coverage is easy and it is similar to being checked when taking out a loan at a bank or other financial institution, they want to see if you will be a financial risk to them when you are searching for a term life insurance quote on line. It’s in their interest because they can’t see what type of person you are because you are applying for a life insurance policy. Therefore, when you are applying for a life insurance policy you will generally need to undergo a medical exam to make sure you are suitable and will be correctly covered by the policy you have chosen. Results from this exam will determine what your monthly premium will be and you can even be denied life insurance coverage if you are considered to be too ill. You will want your family to be covered, so you may opt for a term life insurance quote no medical exam, so that you will be covered and your family will be able to receive some financial help when you pass away.Is not having an exam a good idea?All companies that operate in the life insurance market in business to make money and need to make profit to be viable and to stay in business. This means that they don’t pay up much and that they do make a lot of profit from the policies that they sell to individuals. If every life insurance company needed to pay out for each policy holder that they had, then they would be out of any money that they have taken; therefore, they lower the cost and cover for people who do not want a medical exam when taking out their term life insurance cover.The small print mattersWhen you look further at a term life insurance policy that has no medical exam covers, when compared to what one does cover with a medical exam, you will notice that there are a lot of differences. You can never fully rely on a term life insurance policy that has been issued to you where you were not required to take a medical exam to take out the policy. You should consider any policy that does offer cover with no medical exam as a supplemental policy and should not be considered as your main life insurance policy.Most often, no medical exam insurance policies only will only pay out a fraction of what would be considered if you were to take out a policy that does have more cover. These types of insurance policies are usually found on line, in newspapers and in magazines. You may also find that other financial organizations, that are not solely insurance companies, may offer these types of policies too.Similar to many other life insurance policies, these types of cover will not allow a pay out in the first one or two years that you have the policy. You will find that the company will allow themselves to change the conditions of when they will pay out for a claim, which is all entirely legal. You should also be aware that they are also able to change any of the conditions of the policy should they discover you failed to tell them about any medical condition that you may have or have had in the past.Do You Even Need It?Term life insurance coverage isn’t for everyone, whether this be standard cover or one that is issued to you without a medical exam. If you live by yourself in a small house or apartment, then you won’t really need cover from life insurance, but, if you have a business and have major or only control over it then you should consider getting term life insurance coverage to make sure that if you do need it that your family won’t be left with a huge amount of debt to be paid off. Also, if you have a family who are dependent on your salary, then you will need to take out some sort of term life insurance.
Ensuring Operational Efficiency and Effective Cost Cutting in Healthcare Settings – Best Practices
Operational efficiency has become paramount in healthcare systems with the ever increasing patient base, and the challenge inherent in rising up to the demand for unique patient care services. Healthcare organizations looking to cut down administrative costs find it to be a really testing task and are constantly on the lookout for potent cost cutting strategies. The efforts to cut costs should not prove detrimental to care providers’ vested objective, i.e. ensuring patient and employee satisfaction. Another vital consideration is that no strategy can be successful unless the administrative as well as clinical staff in an organization works in coordination.Using outsourced services has proven beneficial for many healthcare and other businesses looking to save valuable dollars. While it is a known fact that cost cutting is the primary spur for the rise of outsourcing, at present outsourcing has moved much beyond a mere cost saving strategy. Outsourced services such as medical billing and coding services, medical website design and medical website optimization are provided by BPO companies that work side by side with their client healthcare providers. Apart from ensuring cost savings in the range of 20% to 30%, outsourcing is also a way of achieving easy scalability within a short period of time.The Banner Health ModelA recent HBR (Harvard Business Review) blog highlighted how Banner Health, a prominent health system in the US successfully achieved efficiency as well as cost reduction through a successful strategy. Banner Health had lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of plummeting patient volume and reduced reimbursements during the recession. However, they were able to secure $70 million in savings during 2012 – 2013. It is expected that by the year 2017 Banner Health will have $256 million contributed each year to its bottom line by this savings. How did this $5 billion nonprofit system achieve this?They assiduously followed a sensible cost reduction policy, while always keeping in view their core values.Banner Health avoided adopting industry benchmarks in their cost-cutting endeavor and focused on a savings target based on their own performance.
They educated employees of the inevitability of cost cutting measures and the need for a process redesign across the system to improve patient care. They were able to remove the fear of impending layoffs from the employees’ minds. They also convinced the employees how cost cutting would help them invest in new constructive initiatives aimed at better coordinating, standardizing and integrating care provision.People from across the health system were asked to collaborate in cost reduction efforts. This definitely helped them to identify tens of millions of dollars in savings and at the same time ensure support of staff and frontline leaders. Banner’s team invited recommendations from the team to reduce the general and administrative (G&A) costs.
The senior leadership reviewed 123 recommendations, of which 116 (valued at $104 to $133 million annually or 18 – 24 percent of Banner’s G&A expense) were approved. These recommendations included opportunities to save at least $8 million through insourcing second physician reviews of inpatient charts, $4 million in human resource administration by implementing more self-service technology in collaboration with a shared services organization, and $3.5 million by creating an internal facility for drug compounding and packaging. This strategy was successful since by the latter half of 2012, Banner Health could recover $31 million in G&A savings.The team went on to work on its clinical operations as well, beginning with Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix. The physicians at the hospital were included in the team and they were asked to contribute their ideas. Banner Health’s strategy was effective because physicians are a necessary component of any team working to ensure optimum patient care and at the same time bring about significant cost reduction. Clinicians are knowledgeable in clinical functions and operations; they can drive revenue generation and are directly involved in patient care services. Here again the health system could reduce the cost structure by 15% and secured $15 million in direct savings over the next 12 months. Banner North Colorado benefited from the same strategy that was set in motion there as well, capturing more than $13 million in annual savings the first year itself.Banner Health implemented a system-wide optimization program covering all of its 23 acute care hospitals and healthcare facilities. Their success lies in the fact that they were able to create an awareness regarding the significance of cost control throughout the workforce.A Case for OutsourcingWith the healthcare reform and related requirements, healthcare providers and health plans are finding it advantageous to outsource information technology, business processing and call center tasks. Outsourcing will allow a more efficient and potent combination of capabilities and resources. Expert observers endorse the fact that third party collaboration will help ensure better performance, increased efficiency and of course cost reduction. While physicians can make use of an outsourcing service to handle medical billing and coding requirements, there are service providers that use technology to connect payer and provider in real time. With this, providers can check for patient eligibility, referral policies, limits on service and the financial responsibility of patients. Providers can also submit claims in real time.Outsourcing will prove to be a wise investment if it is assigned to a firm that follows the required standards for accuracy and turnaround time. Consider the references and talk to clients using the same company so that an informed decision can be made. It is true that outsourcing involves loss of control to a certain extent, and that is why it is vital to choose a reliable and reputable outsourcing partner.It is apparent that in these tough times, cost cutting has become a necessary measure for all businesses including those involved in healthcare provision. Banner Health’s example proves how all members of a healthcare system can be constructively involved in cost saving efforts. Identifying and implementing best practices in cost reduction, including the use of healthcare outsourcing services is the need of the day for health systems striving to bring about a sea change in the quality and cost of care.