The California Superior Court today upheld regulations recently enacted state by the Department of Managed Health Care (DMHC) which protects patients from an unfair billing practice known as “balance billing.”

“This is phenomenal news for every patient in California. It will ensure that patients don’t get stuck with the bill when their medical providers can’t agree on a sensible payment solution,” said Donald Crane, President and CEO of the California Association of Physician Groups, which represents groups that employ or contract with nearly 60,000 California doctors and provide care to 15 million Californians.

“Today’s court decision sends a strong message to anyone engaged in balance billing that this sharp practice has been officially declared to be unfair and that those that continue to do so face disciplinary action. We have long sought a prohibition on balance billing because we believe that patients should never have to worry if their medical bill will be paid as they are coping with an emergency situation,” said Crane.

Balance billing occurs mostly as a result of unscheduled emergency room visits. Even though a hospital may be contracted with an insurance carrier for use of the facility, the ER physician or specialist performing the procedure may not have such a contract. Their price for the service is often much higher than what is reasonable and customarily paid to physicians under insurance contracts. In many cases, non-contracted physicians are charging more than double the customary rate. Faced with aggressive billing practices, including threats of being pursued by bill collectors, many patients feel pressured to pay whatever charges they are billed, despite the fact that they have insurance.

In October of this year, the California Department of Managed Health Care issued regulations that defined balance billing as an unfair billing practice. Immediately after the regulations took effect, the California Medical Association, hospitals, emergency room physicians and other medical specialists challenged the rules in court.

“Physician groups and their member doctors strongly opposed this legal challenge. As long-time opponents of balance billing, these regulations are right on target in addressing the problem and removing the patient as a pawn in disputes between medical providers,” said Crane.

The passage of two key measures in California, Measure R in Los Angeles County and Proposition 1A statewide, are expected to add significant funds dedicated to traffic and transportation improvements.

Measure R will finance new transportation projects, as well as provide funding for many projects already in place through the implementation of a half-cent sales tax for Los Angeles County. The measure was officially passed on December 2, 2008, and is expected to become law on January 2, 2009, with the tax taking effect in July 2009.

Measure R is projected to generate $8.5 billion over the next ten years and a total of $40 billion over 30 years for congestion relief projects — funding everything from new rail and/or bus rapid transit projects; commuter rail improvements; Metro Rail system improvements; highway projects; and local city sponsored transportation improvements. In addition, fifteen percent of revenues will be returned to local jurisdictions for traffic improvements, signal timing, bus service, and transit projects.

This broad reaching measure is expected to positively impact several of Iteris’ ongoing transportation systems projects, such as:

• “Subway to the Sea”: Iteris is currently part of the team preparing the Alternatives Analysis that will recommend the alignment and station locations. With the funding allotted through Measure R, this project may now be advanced to the next step which is the Environmental Impact review and Preliminary Engineering.
• Exposition Light Rail: Iteris is providing traffic engineering services on the design/build team constructing Phase 1 of the Exposition Light Rail line from Downtown Los Angeles to Culver City. Measure R could provide the additional capital needed to initiate Phase 2, which will extend the line from Culver City to Santa Monica. Iteris is currently part of the team preparing the Environmental Impact review of the Phase 2 project.
• Metro Orange Line Extension: Iteris is completing preliminary engineering for the Metro Orange Line Extension in the San Fernando Valley. Measure R may influence the board’s decision to implement the project and proceed with the design/build.
• I-710 South and 710 Tunnel Gap Closure Projects: Iteris is performing traffic analysis and truck forecasting for these projects that will upgrade the freeway and improve truck and traffic flows between the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the SR-60 freeway, as well as complete the I-710 freeway with a tunnel below South Pasadena and Pasadena.
• Burlington Northern Santa Fe Grade Separations: Iteris conducted the transportation studies in the Environmental Impact report for the construction of rail and roadway grade separations in the Gateway Cities area.

The passage of Proposition 1A allows $9.95 billion in bonds to be issued to establish a clean, efficient high-speed train service linking Southern California, the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley, and the San Francisco Bay Area — easing congestion on California highways and airports.

If you read this blog regularly, you most likely are involved in some fashion or another with a publicly traded company.  Previously, the hot portion of Wall Street was the IPO market.  However that has cooled considerably in the past year and it appears that it will continue to do so for some time.

Mass High Tech, The Journal of New England Technology, reports in today’s edition that the region’s venture capitalists expect the market for initial public offerings of technology company stock to be frozen until at least 2011 because of the ongoing global economic crisis and instability in the stock market. IPOs represent one of the best opportunities for investors and founders to benefit from the growth of technology companies, and provide incentive for entrepreneurs to launch new companies.

Mass High Tech has also reported that companies that had filed plans with federal regulators for IPOs have begun to cancel those plans. Through in-depth interviews with more than a dozen key New England venture capitalists, Mass High Tech journalists reported that investors should expect almost no IPOs in 2009 and 2010. In addition, the VCs predicted that a second popular path for growing companies — acquisition by a larger company – will be dramatically limited by the low prices that potential partners are willing to pay in the current economy.

Venture capitalists who have invested with companies in technology areas such as computers, software, the Internet, alternative energy and biotech said that the lack of IPOs and acquisitions—combined with difficulty in raising new funds –means that they will have to carefully examine their investment portfolios, more carefully managing expenses at some companies and perhaps shutting down those that are less able to survive the tough economy.

With the economy in its current state, I assumed that eBay sales would continue to increase as consumers sought out the best deals.  And it appears that I may have been correct in that assumption.  BizAuctions, a company that provides commercial eBay liquidation services for excess inventories, announced today that its items listed for sale on eBay during the month of November 2008 increased by 14% over listings posted for October 2008. These items, such as big screen TVs, digital cameras, and other electronics, included excess inventory and returned goods which the Company acquired through liquidation projects for its clients.

CEO Delmar Janovec commented, “BizAuctions posted 3,586 item listings on eBay for the month of November, which represents an increase of 443 listings, or an approximate 14% increase over listings in the month of October 2008. This increase is indicative of management’s commitment to provide our customers with exemplary service, as shown by our customer satisfaction rating on eBay of 99.6% with over 30,000 feedbacks from our customers.”

Now that Chrysler and General Motors have been granted an immediate $13.4 billion loan from the government, additional steps must be taken to preserve taxpayers’ investment in the automotive industry, according to Edmunds.

First, the government must create a stimulus to motivate hesitant car-buyers to re-enter the marketplace.

“Our December sales forecast indicates a Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate (SAAR) of 9.8 million vehicles sold, but no automaker can survive as a viable business in the United States if fewer than 11 million vehicles are sold annually industry-wide,” according to Edmunds.com Senior Analyst Jesse Toprak.

Second, credit must be further loosened so that car-shoppers have an easier time getting loans.

“All around the country, dealers are expressing concerns that their showrooms are largely empty, and that many of the customers they do have are unable to get financing, even when they have decent credit scores,” reported Edmunds’ AutoObserver.com Editor Michelle Krebs. “Taxpayer money bailed out the financial institutions, so there should be a way for the government to grease the skids as far as credit is concerned.”

Third, legislators should implement a coherent energy policy that helps to shift consumer demand consistently to more fuel-efficient vehicles so automakers can focus their product development efforts more narrowly and efficiently.

“There is a clear correlation between gas prices and interest in fuel efficiency,” stated Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, PhD. “Car-shoppers flock to compact cars and hybrids when gas prices are high, but now as the national average gas price is below $1.70 per gallon, trucks and SUVs are expected to outsell cars for the first time since February.”

Online retailers who open a physical store during the holiday shopping season could see more than a 15% decrease in online sales, according to research by professors at MIT Sloan School of Management. The opening of stores triggers the requirement to charge sales tax, which affects online sales because customers can look at competing retailers online and find alternative options at better prices, they explained.

The professors found in a paper titled, “How does an Obligation to Collect Sales Tax Affect Consumer and Firm Behavior?” that U.S. state sales tax laws have a significant impact on both customer and retailer behavior, providing a disincentive for retailers to establish a physical presence in high-tax states as well as a disincentive for customers to make online purchases when sales tax is charged.

Coauthor and MIT Sloan Marketing Professor Duncan Simester said that retail websites are required to charge state sales tax once they establish a physical presence in a state such as a retail store, warehouse or office. “On the Internet, we found that when sales tax was charged, demand dropped about 16%,” he said.

The authors found that a way to mitigate the decrease in online sales is to offer price discounts. “The deeper the discount, the less likely customers were to look at competing retailers and the smaller the impact of charging sales tax,” said Simester. “You may still have to pay 5% more because of sales tax, but the reality is that you are already getting a good deal so there is less incentive to search elsewhere.”

We usually think of smartphones at holiday time as bright shiny objects under the tree — our dream gift — but will they also prove to be a mobile operator’s worst nightmare? With each passing season, more and more smartphones are in the hands of increasingly unsophisticated subscribers. Operators look upon these subscribers to generate the highest revenues, and they may in fact be the most loyal as well (if all works correctly). But there is a dark side of the bargain: they cost more to support. Sometimes, much more.

A single mis-configured email setting may result in a 30-minute support call working the subscriber through arcane menus and settings, eliminating any profit he or she was expected to bring to the table. Compounding the problem, the operator must train skilled frontline care personnel at additional expense. This in the face of mandates for cost-cutting due to an uncertain economic future, and the need to maintain usability of phones in the hands of subscribers for longer periods of time due to slower replacement rates.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) technology provides the operator — for the first time — with a live, over-the-air management channel to the phone, offering a way out from this Dickinsonian nightmare. It re-invents the interaction between the subscriber and frontline care, reducing operational expenses and increasing customer satisfaction through first-time problem resolution.

I thought you would enjoy the following Holiday quip:

The Nightmare After Christmas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thru the call center,

Not a dialpad was stirring, from a frustrated dissenter.

The customer care reps were home without care,

Knowing support calls could not reach them there.

Shorten your calls, and take care of your subs,

This is Mobile Device Management; they don’t sell it in pubs.

Fix Windows, fix Symbian, fix Android as well,

LiMO and others? Too many to tell!

“Both sides need to realize they have the same goal: effective communication between citizens and their representatives in Congress, ultimately resulting in good legislation,” said Beverly Bell, CMF’s Executive Director. “What we need is a public-private collaboration on how to accomplish that goal because any new system cannot be developed by one side alone.”

To help facilitate the collaboration, CMF previously surveyed more than 350 congressional staffers and nearly 10,000 adult Americans to identify their expectations, practices and perceptions of the other side. For example, CMF found that 44% of Americans had communicated with their Member of Congress in the past five years, and that they were far more likely to be politically active in other ways. This dramatic increase in citizen engagement means Members of Congress can expect to see more Americans seeking to make their voices heard in the democratic process.

Combining the data gathered from these surveys with additional research, CMF produced this latest report to help educate and promote changes in the attitudes and practices of both sides. Highlights include:

• Details on how citizens and elected officials use the Internet to communicate with each other;
• The challenges citizens, Members of Congress, and grassroots advocates face which threaten to shut down the effective exchange of ideas;
• An innovative new model for constituent communications; and
• Recommendations to each stakeholder group – citizens, grassroots advocates, Congress, and the technology vendors to each group – for improving their practices.

Print is dying. In late October The Christian Science Monitor announced that it would discontinue its print edition, making it the first national daily newspaper to abandon print. Around the same time, Condé Nast Publications announced that Men’s Vogue would be folded into Vogue and published only twice yearly. Newspaper circulation figures are down almost 5% from last year, with magazine ad pages down almost 10%. As New York Times media reporter David Carr wrote, print is “a legacy technology that attracts fewer consumers and advertisers every single day.”

While traditional print media continues to experience sharp declines, people will always crave content. Moreover, the website arms of many publications are generating greater traffic and ad revenue, offsetting diminished print returns and producing net increases in readership.

“Content is no longer simply produced and consumed,” says Philmore Anderson, founder and CEO of multimedia outfit Sahara Media, Inc. “The success of online media rests in its ability to easily share content and opinions with the world.”

Recognizing this trend, especially among younger demographics, Sahara is planning to relaunch Honey Magazine as an online magazine and launch a social network called HiveSpot.com.