Basic primer outlining how and why ETFs may pay capital gains. Article discusses how often ETFs may pay capital gains, where those gains are generated from, and how ETFs are structured.
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https://investornews.vanguard/why-do-etfs-pay-capital-gains/
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With 2013 half over, it’s time to pause, take a breath, and see if you’re on track with your goals. This is an essential part of running a successful business — taking structured time throughout the year to work ON your biz and make sure the path you’re on is, in fact, the path you want to be on. Read on for 5 Steps to completing your mid-year check-in…
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http://www.associationofmarketing.org/articles/view.php?article_id=7919
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The World Health Organization’s new action plan to speed up universal access to safe blood and blood products pulls together existing recommendations and recommends new improved ways of working. It’s the start of a four-year collaborative effort to improve blood transfusion and blood-based therapies in all countries.
Safe blood saves lives in all sorts of circumstances, not least in emergency and epidemic settings. Blood transfusion and blood products are critical for birth delivery for both the mother and baby; the survival and quality of life of patients suffering from life-threatening conditions such as haemophilia, thalassemia, immune deficiency and cancer; treating severe injuries and carrying out medical and surgical procedures.
But progress in blood safety and availability has been slow in many parts of the world, placing patients’ safety at risk and putting undue pressure on health workers. Progress is also mostly restricted to developed countries. Out of the approximate 118 million blood donations collected globally, 42% are collected in high-income countries, home to 16 % of the world’s population. And one out of four low-income countries do not test all donated blood, while 54% of countries do not have surveillance systems to securitise the supply chain from blood donor to patient.
Challenges include: slow implementation of national blood policies and weak blood regulatory systems; insufficient number of voluntary blood donors (who are considered the safest donors); poor quality management of screening tests, blood grouping and compatibility testing; inappropriate clinical use of blood; insufficient national funding for blood safety.
To address these, WHO has set out six key objectives for all countries and in particular those with weak blood systems:
The Organization looks forward to working with partners worldwide to implement the plan, improve blood supply particularly in the low and middle-income countries where this is so urgently needed, and save lives. The plan will run from 2020-2024.
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https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/26-02-2020-who-steps-up-action-to-improve-access-to-safe-blood
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In response to calls for action, WHO has provided guidelines, physical standards, training and technical support to improve blood product quality, safety and availability in WHO regions and in countries. Despite these actions, progress in blood availability and safety under effective regulation has been slow in many parts of the world.
For that reason, the WHO Action framework for blood products 2020-2023, proposes a renewed effort to scale up programme implementation to improve global adequacy of blood donation, and universal access to quality and safe blood and blood components for transfusion, and plasma derived medicinal products.
The Action Framework provides strategic direction to WHO’s work for the years 2020-2023. It identifies six strategic objectives: appropriately structured, well-coordinated and sustainably resourced national blood systems; regulatory capacity to ensure the quality and safety of blood; functioning and efficiently managed blood services; effective implementation of patient blood management to optimize transfusion practices, effective surveillance, haemovigilance and pharmacovigilance, supported by comprehensive and accurate data collection systems; and partnerships, collaboration and information exchange to achieve key priorities and jointly address challenges and emerging threats at global, regional and national levels.
The Action Framework will improve coordination and collaboration at all levels of WHO. The document will promote and strengthen new and existing partnerships, as areas for collaborative action are clearly identified. Moreover, it demonstrates the need for support to WHO (including sustainable funding) to coordinate the implementation of this ambitious plan. As a result, the Action Framework for blood products will allow WHO to more effectively carry out its mandate on blood, and to increase the impact of WHO activities to strengthen blood systems and blood regulation in countries and regions and eventually to ensure universal access to blood products worldwide.
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https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/19-02-2020-who-action-framework-to-advance-universal-access-to-safe-effective-and-quality-assured-blood-products-2020–2023
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Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center have announced the results of a study that may change how nutrition therapy is delivered to overweight and obese patients with type 2 diabetes. The “Nutrition Pathway Study” compared three models of nutrition therapy and found that a highly structured nutrition plan provides the most significant impact on A1C, body weight and lipid profiles. The study results were presented at the American Diabetes Association’s 76th Scientific Sessions in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Participants in the structured nutrition therapy arm of the study reduced A1C by an average of 0.67 percent and reduced body weight by an average of 3.5 Kg over 16 weeks. According to Osama Hamdy, M.D., Ph.D., Medical Director of the Obesity Clinical Program at Joslin Diabetes Center and lead investigator on the study, these results were achieved without increasing exercise, changing medications or undertaking behavioral changes.
“This drop in A1C due to nutrition therapy alone is much better than what we have been able to achieve with many of the current medications for type 2 diabetes ,” said Dr. Hamdy. “This is very encouraging since participants in the study have lived with type 2 diabetes for more than 10 years and were not able to control their blood glucose or weight with multiple medications.”
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The last time you called your doctor’s office, how long did you have to wait for a reply? How long do you usually have to wait to get an appointment or wait for a prescription to be called in? When you get to the office, how long do you spend in the waiting room and how much time does the doctor spend with you?
Did you get all your questions answered? How many seconds do you have in the beginning of your appointment to explain your symptoms before you are interrupted? Do the nurses and doctors seem to be more interested in their computers or their charts than they are to you?
If your experiences are like most people, your answers to these questions are not very flattering to the medical profession and to the health care system in general. Most doctors don’t really want their practices to be like this, but they don’t have much choice. They have to have a high volume of patients in order to make ends meet financially. The high volume makes the clinic a very busy place and most patients don’t feel like they get much attention.
In 1996 in Seattle, a doctor named Howard Moran thought there should be a better way to do this. He pioneered the concept of having a lower volume practice with highly attentive medical care provided as a service for patients in return for a retainer fee, much like many attorneys or accountants use. This fee may be in addition to, or in lieu of, the regular office fees that are billed to insurance companies. This concept allows the practice to remain financially solvent while providing better, more attentive medical service to its low volume of patients (usually keeping the patient count down to about one tenth of the number in a typical traditional primary care practice).
Unfortunately, health insurance companies currently don’t pay for this type of service, so that means the patients have to pay this out of pocket, but if the service is good, it may be worth it. Patients who join these practices are encouraged to keep their usual insurance which they will need for visits to other specialists, laboratory testing, radiological testing and/or hospital services if needed.
Many concierge practices offer same or next day appointments, no long waits for appointments or prescription refills, direct access to your personal physician day or night, house calls if necessary, continuing care if hospitalized, complete physical examinations, audiometry screening, cardiovascular and cancer risk screening, more attention to preventive care, unrushed appointments, all questions answered, family meetings if needed, coordination of care with specialists, provision of personal health records on CDs or flash drives, etc., etc.
Depending on the type and number of services that are provided, the flat retainer fee can vary widely from one area to the next ranging from $100 to $20,000/ year, most probably averaging around $1500-3000/year. There were only a few hundred of these physicians a few years ago, but there are over 5000 of them now all over the country. Many of them, but not all, are listed at the main website for the American Academy of Private Physicians – http://www.aapp.org/. Patients may be able to find a concierge physician in their area on this site.
There has been some controversy surrounding some of these practices because some authorities feel the growth of concierge medicine will lead to a 2-tiered medical system in this country – one for the wealthy and one for the not-so-wealthy. Also, with the current shortage of primary care physicians (PCPs), with increasing numbers of concierge practices, the number of PCPs available for traditional offices will be even smaller, and access to care for patients served by those practices will suffer. On the other hand, more medical students may become interested in primary care if opportunities in concierge medicine are available to them when they finish their residencies.
Some of these practices have come under fire from insurance companies who say that concierge physicians are basically providing an insurance plan for their patients without having an insurance license to do so. The practices must therefore be legally and financially structured in such a way that avoids this criticism.
Overall, the concept of concierge medicine provides a good alternative to the currently unsatisfying traditional model of medical practice. The fee may seem high to some, but in most instances, it probably isn’t much higher than the cost of the local cable or telephone bill, or about the same as what a family would spend eating out at a restaurant once a week.
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Source by Greg Warth, M.D.
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Following on from my earlier article “Developing a structured pipeline – The Issues” this article describes how to build the all too elusive, structured sales pipeline.
So to recap: what should a structured pipeline report aim to achieve?
Firstly, it should enable you to view each sale in a consistent manner.
Second, it should clearly identify if a sales opportunity has progressed or stagnated.
Thirdly, it should contained a factoring index which will more accurately reflect the true value of the pipeline
Fourthly, it should provide sales and/or company management with a consistent and reliable prediction of business that should be closed in the forthcoming period.
Fifth, it should be simple and relatively easy to complete (salespeople as a breed are poor at filling in reports).
Sixth, it should be focused on numbers rather than opinion.
To build a consistent view of each sales opportunity take the sales cycle in your business and break it down into discrete milestones.
So for example,
– Milestone 1 is a lead or an enquiry who has identified desire to purchase your product or service.
– Milestone 2 to progress the sale you need to demonstrate the product
– Milestone 3 they have the budget to pay for your product
– Milestone 4 you have submitted a proposal
– Milestone 5 you’re on the shortlist
– Milestone 6 you have a verbal order
– Milestone 7 you have a written order.
The next step is to put percentages against these milestones for example,
1) 5%,
2) 10%,
3) 20%,
4) 25%,
5) 50%,
6) 90%,
7) 100%.
This approach allows you to build a factored pipeline i.e. the value of the opportunity time the percentage milestone. Don’t get hung up about whether the percentages should be this or that number what we are building is something that will give you a consistent view across all your sales opportunities and not something which reflects the precise chance of winning per opportunity. The progress of the sale can be shown in any way you like; this could be as a table, a graph, or a set of traffic light colours going from red to green as you move along the sales process. Other information you need is simple the prospect name, if it is a new or existing customer, the value of the opportunity and a projected win date.
By constructing what I have described you’ve gone a long way to getting a grip on your sales performance, you’ve now turned sales reporting into a set of numbers which over time you can analyse. For example you’ll see which sales have stagnated because they wont have moved along the pipeline for a period of time, you’ll be able to identify how overoptimistic you sales force are by comparing the projected win date with the actual win date. Most commonly this is between 3-6 months.
Now that you have a factored pipeline you can start to build up metrics on the relationship between the size of your pipeline and your monthly sales. It also now enables you to look forward because as your factored pipeline rises and falls to will your sales, thus you can act early as soon as you see your pipeline numbers dip.
You’re now at last starting to get some sensible numbers to enable you to plan your business and you have moved from a jolly nice chat to a shorter focused and more effective sales meeting. As the Meerkat would say “simples.”
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Source by Laurence Ainsworth
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