Assignment 2: Ethical Factors for HMO

You are the HMO Vice President of Operations for NuCare HMO. The HMO President tells you that the board is considering discontinuing Medicare affiliation. The board wants to know how this will impact their membership in rural areas where there is no other HMO that is affiliated with Medicare.

The president directs you to create a five- to six-slide PowerPoint presentation to present to the Board of Directors.  The presentation should briefly outline what the likely outcome would be for rural membership if the HMO stops attending to Medicare patients. Include the following considerations in your presentation:

• The difficulty members may face in finding new care options
• The concerns that may need to be addressed for members seeking new care options
• Whether members will be able to acquire Medicare gap insurance
• Make a final recommendation as to whether NuCare should discontinue its Medicare affliation.

Use headings, bold, and bulleted lists in your presentation. Use the notes section in PowerPoint to clarify your responses or add additional detail where warranted.

The attached article discusses what happens to patients when their HMO decides to discontinue serving Medicare patients. The article contrasts the different experiences among people who live in areas where there is a choice of another Medicare HMO against the experiences among people who live in areas where there is not another HMO.

Source: Booske, B. C., Lynch, J., & Riley, G. (2002). Impact of Medicare managed care market withdrawal on beneficiaries. Health Care Financing Review, 24(1), 95-115.

COM301 MOD 2 CT

Option #1: Self-concepts, Scripts, and Impression Management in the Workplace Paper

For this assignment, in a four- to five-page paper, you will conduct a self-analysis examining how self-concepts, scripts, and impression management are all insinuated in your current or former workplace experiences.

• This includes your own analysis of your experience and attitudes towards others at work and interpersonal communication influenced by yours and your counterparty’s socioeconomic status, sexuality, gender, disability, and/or race/group affiliation, and age. This also includes the usual formations of cliques within the workplace.
• Most of us have experienced some degree of discrimination in the workplace. Some of us have not been the object of discrimination, but we are aware of forms of discrimination that take place in the workplace. Make sure that you analyze one or two instances of workplace discrimination.
• You must demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the concepts associated especially with Chapter 2 of the textbook.
• In the argumentative phase of your paper, explain how you negotiated the interpersonal communication of discrimination. Explain whether this negotiation required modifications of any of those self-concepts and identities you perform, the scripts you use, and the ways that you manage impressions in order to negotiate these experiences of workplace discrimination.

Requirements:

• Refer to the Critical Thinking Rubric in the Module 2 Folder for more information on expectations for this assignment.

• Your written paper should be four to five pages in length, not counting the title and reference pages, which you must include.
• You need to cite at least two sources for this assignment, outside of the textbook. These should be scholarly or peer-reviewed resources. The CSU-Global Library is a great place to find resources.
• Your paper must be formatted according to CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Requirements.
• If you need assistance with your writing style, start with the links under the Research Help and Writing Help tabs on the CSU-Global Library’s homepage.

Review the Case application: APPRAISING THE SECRETARIES AT SWEETWATER U at the end of Chapter 9 of your textbook. Review the three questions at the end of the case. Think about how you might answer those questions. Now, answer these questions:

• Do you think that the experts ‘recommendations will be sufficient to get most of the administrators to fill out the rating forms properly? Why? Why not? What additional actions (if any) do you think will be necessary?
• Do you think that Vice President Winchester would be better off dropping graphic rating forms, substituting instead one of the other techniques we discussed in this chapter, such as a ranking method? Why?
• What performance appraisal system would you develop for the secretaries if you were Rob Winchester? Defend your answer.

Application Case

Appraising the Secretaries at Sweetwater U

Rob Winchester, newly appointed vice president for administrative affairs at Sweetwater State University, faced a tough problem shortly after his university career began. Three weeks after he came on board in September, Sweetwater’s president, Rob’s boss, told Rob that one of his first tasks was to improve the appraisal system used to evaluate secretarial and clerical performance at Sweetwater U. The main difficulty was that the performance appraisal was traditionally tied directly to salary increases given at the end of the year. Therefore, most administrators were less than accurate when they used the graphic rating forms that were the basis of the clerical staff evaluation. In fact, what usually happened was that each administrator simply rated his or her clerk or secretary as “excellent.” This cleared the way for them to receive a maximum pay raise every year.

But the current university budget simply did not include enough money to fund another “maximum” annual raise for every staffer. Furthermore, Sweetwater’s president felt that the custom of providing invalid feedback to each secretary on his or her year’s performance was not productive, so he had asked the new vice president to revise the system. In October, Rob sent a memo to all administrators, telling them that in the future no more than half the secretaries reporting to any particular administrator could be appraised as “excellent.” This move, in effect, forced each supervisor to begin ranking his or her secretaries for quality of performance. The vice president’s memo met widespread resistance immediately—from administrators, who were afraid that many of their secretaries would begin leaving for more lucrative jobs, and from secretaries, who felt that the new system was unfair and reduced each secretary’s chance of receiving a maximum salary increase. A handful of secretaries had begun picketing outside the president’s home on the university campus. The picketing, caustic remarks by disgruntled administrators, and rumors of an impending slowdown by the secretaries (there were about 250 on campus) made Rob Winchester wonder whether he had made the right decision by setting up forced ranking. He knew, however, that there were a few performance appraisal experts in the School of Business, so he decided to set up an appointment with them to discuss the matter.

He met with them the next morning. He explained the situation as he had found it: The current appraisal system had been set up when the university first opened 10 years earlier. A committee of secretaries had developed it. Under that system, Sweetwater’s administrators filled out forms similar to the one shown in Table 9-2. This once-a-year appraisal (in March) had run into problems almost immediately, since it was apparent from the start that administrators varied widely in their interpretations of job standards, as well as in how conscientiously they filled out the forms and supervised their secretaries. Moreover, at the end of the first year it became obvious to everyone that each secretary’s salary increase was tied directly to the March appraisal. For example, those rated “excellent” received the maximum increases, those rated “good” received smaller increases, and those given neither rating received only the standard across-the-board cost-of-living increase. Since universities in general—and Sweetwater, in particular—have paid secretaries somewhat lower salaries than those prevailing in private i ndustry, some secretaries left in a huff that first year. From that time on, most administrators simply rated all secretaries excellent in order to reduce staff turnover, thus ensuring each a maximum increase. In the process, they also avoided the hard feelings aroused by the significant performance differences otherwise highlighted by administrators.

Two Sweetwater experts agreed to consider the problem, and in 2 weeks they came back to the vice president with the following recommendations. First, the form used to rate the secretaries was grossly insufficient. It was unclear what “excellent” or “quality of work” meant, for example. They recommended instead a form like that in Figure 9-4. In addition, they recommended that the vice president rescind his earlier memo and no longer attempt to force university administrators to arbitrarily rate at least half their secretaries as something less than excellent. The two consultants pointed out that this was unfair, since it was quite possible that any particular administrator might have staffers who were all or virtually all excellent—or conceivably, although less likely, all below standard. The experts said that the way to get all the administrators to take the appraisal process more seriously was to stop tying it to salary increases. In other words, they recommended that every administrator fill out a form as in Figure 9-4 for each secretary at least once a year and then use this form as the basis of a counseling session. Salary increases would have to be made on some basis other than the performance appraisal, so that administrators would no longer hesitate to fill out the rating forms honestly.

Rob thanked the two experts and went back to his office to ponder their recommendations. Some of the recommendations (such as substituting the new rating form for the old) seemed to make sense. Nevertheless, he still had serious doubts as to the efficacy of any graphic rating form, particularly compared with his original, preferred forced ranking approach. The experts’ second recommendation—to stop tying the appraisals to automatic salary increases—made sense but raised at least one very practical problem: If salary increases were not to be based on performance appraisals, on what were they to be based? He began wondering whether the experts’ recommendations weren’t simply based on ivory tower theorizing.

Questions

• 9-34. Do you think that the experts’ recommendations will be sufficient to get most of the administrators to fill out the rating forms properly? Why? Why not? What additional actions (if any) do you think will be necessary?
• 9-35. Do you think that Vice President Winchester would be better off dropping graphic rating forms, substituting instead one of the other techniques we discussed in this chapter, such as a ranking method? Why?
• 9-36. What performance appraisal system would you develop for the secretaries if you were Rob Winchester? Defend your answer.

Answer each question fully, and include relevant citations to your textbook or other articles, the lecture, or online research. Be sure to use no more than 25% copy and paste. Include your own opinions, thoughts, examples, and experiences as support for your ideas, as well. Expect to write about 2–4 pages, double-spaced, excluding references and the title page. Submit at the end of the week.

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Read Chapter 3 of Wellness: Concepts and Applications (8th ed.), which explains the principles and concepts of cardiorespiratory endurance as well as its importance, relationship to physical fitness, and our overall well-being.  For your initial post:

• Describe the difference between physical activity, exercise, and fitness in your own words.
• Appraise the components of physical fitness by creating a diagram that accurately displays these components.  Refer to this Creating and Editing a Diagram document for assistance with this process. Your diagram must include the following:

• Health-related components
• Performance-related components
• Example activities (with images)

• List and explain two physiological changes that result from regular cardiorespiratory training.
• Examine the relationship between cardiorespiratory endurance and wellness.  Give two health-related benefits that are attained from regular aerobic exercise.

Your initial post must be a minimum of 250 words.  Support your research with your course text and at least one additional scholarly source.  All sources must be cited in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center.

Guided Response: Review your classmates’ posts and reply to at least two peers.  Are their diagrams displayed well and are they as complete as they should be? Compare and contrast your own post and research with those of your classmates. Are there elements of your response you would change based on your review of your peers’ posts? Are there recommendations you would make to your peer that could strengthen their posts?  Try to select peers who have not yet been responded to and ensure each peer response contains at least 100 words.

ad Chapter 3 of Wellness: Concepts and Applications (8th ed.), which explains the principles and concepts of cardiorespiratory endurance as well as its importance, relationship to physical fitness, and our overall well-being.  For your initial post:nents of Physical Fitness

Read Chapter 3 of Wellness: Concepts and Applications (8th ed.), which explains the principles and concepts of cardiorespiratory endurance as well as its importance, relationship to physical fitness, and our overall well-being.  For your initial post:Describe the difference between physical activity, exercise, and

Due to the strong personality of the Dollar Shave Club brand, it serves a fairly narrow set of target customers. Reaching these customers in targeted ways that don’t waste the brand’s promotion budget on non-target consumers is a challenging but important part of Unilever’s marketing plan for the brand. One option for the company to reach likely customers is to ask current DSC subscribers to refer their friends to the service.

Under the proposed referral program, any current Dollar Shave Club subscriber can earn a cash bonus by recommending the Club to a friend who ends up subscribing. Effectively, the company can share its advertising and sales budget with these referrers instead of spending it on its current promotional activities (TV ads, direct mail, etc.). Your job is to help the brand understand how a referral program might affect customer lifetime value and how cost-effective it will be compared to other promotional activities.

One advantage of referrals is that they can strengthen existing customer relationships. In prior research on consumer behavior, they have found that endorsing or recommending a product reinforces a customer’s positive feelings about the brand and makes them a more satisfied and loyal customer. In preparation for launching the referral program, they’ve conducted additional research for Dollar Shave Club specifically, to see whether this benefit would be likely. This research found that DSC subscribers who referred a friend would likely show an increase in retention, from the brand’s typical 83% yearly retention rate to an estimated 86% after referring a friend.

Dollar Shave Club’s marketing research also suggests that customers who joined through the referral program are likely to behave differently from standard DSC subscribers (see Table 2). The research team categorizes referrals in two groups: Join Anyway customers and True New customers. The “Join Anyway” referral customers are those who are already likely to subscribe to DSC but who will happily use a friend’s referral code if available. Approximately 40% of referral customers are expected to fall in this category. This type of referral doesn’t seem like a promising investment because it doesn’t entirely new customer relationship, compared to simply letting those customers join normally. However, the research team has found that Join Anyway customers are slightly more loyal to the company than standard subscribers because of their connection to the friend who referred them. The team estimates that the retention rate for this group will be 84% compared to DSC’s typical retention of 83%.

The second group of referral customers, the “True New” customer group, are those who would not have joined Dollar Shave Club without a referral. Approximately 60% of referral customers are expected to fall in this category. In general, the company sees this type of referral as more beneficial than the Join Anyway category because it creates brand-new customer relationships that the company would not get otherwise. However, the research team has found that True New subscribers tend to be a weaker fit with the brand and show lower retention than standard subscribers. The team estimates that the retention rate for this group will be 80% compared to DSC’s typical retention of 83%.

·     The annual discount rate is 10% (i = .10)

·     DSC receives 100% of profits (p – c) for its subscription sales and expects to receive 50% of the profits from indirect sales (unless noted otherwise)

·     Account for acquisition costs in your calculations

·     Acquisition costs are paid entirely by DSC in both channels

P=8 C=4.50 Q=12

·)How much value would DSC gain from each of the two referral types described above? Based on the expected proportion of each type, how much value should DSC expect any given referral to create for them on average?

·      ) DSC’s current promotional activities require $60 of spending to acquire a new subscriber. Would spending $60 per referral be more or less profitable (in terms of total CLV created) than DSC’s current promotions? What would be the maximum amount of spending per referral to match the value of other promotional spending?