Word: system
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Perhaps. But Linux still has a long way to go in the dumb-like-me consumer market. Windows' main claim to fame is its relative ease of use--at least compared to MS-DOS. Or raw Linux. Until the Linuxians create a system that's as easy to use as Windows--or better still, the Mac--Microsoft has nothing to worry about. Well, almost nothing...
Patent extensions for drugs are rare. The last one, granted in 1996, was for the popular arthritis drug Daypro. So Schering-Plough has tried to work the system every way it can. First it wanted Congress to approve a straight extension of its patent. When that didn't fly, it tried a bill that would have shifted any patent-extension decision away from Congress to a new review board at the Patent and Trademark Office, and defined criteria for such extensions in ways that tended to favor the drug companies. But that bill, quietly introduced by New Jersey Senator Frank...
...meantime, United has developed a new system for staying on top of costs. The company will switch from precertification to a basket of tools including something it calls "profiling" doctors. United will keep tabs on how doctors are caring for their patients and compare those decisions against "best-practice" guidelines. Regular report cards will be sent to doctors so they can see how they stack up and improve their practice. United will also be checking to see who is falling outside the profiles...
Precertification has been used extensively in the '90s by managed-care companies to control costs. It seemed like a good idea at the time. In theory, having doctors justify their decisions would make them sensitive to the costs of care. But in practice the system evolved into an expensive bureaucracy. When United reviewed its precertification program, it found that it cost the company $100 million a year--and still United was approving 99.1% of all decisions...
...COMMERCE WATCHDOG Here's further proof that online shopping isn't all it's cracked up to be: of over three dozen newly rated websites listed on Consumer Reports Online at CONSUMERREPORTS.ORG, only Amazon.com wins top honors for "a very satisfying shopping experience." Rated by the five-point system used in the print magazine, the site evaluates e-merchants based on content, usability and policies. Lillian Vernon's catalog site is labeled "inconvenient" and "tedious," while the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut site gets dinged for its "poorly cross-referenced search engine." Just so-so sites include Victoria's Secret, Frederick...