Oxford Heathcare recomends employees prepare...

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My sister works for Oxford Healthcare and when we last spoke she had told me to my surprise that they had told her and other employees to prepare for Y2K. They did not give any recommendations beyond that, but she has certainly taken the hint.

I thought this was kind of ironic coming from a company which has had a questionable past with their computer infrastructure. I'd hate to think for my sister's sake that they expect to go way under, since their Y2K remediation is likely shot.

Any comments?

Other companies doing so?

Father

-- Thomas G. Hale (hale.t@worldnet.att.net), April 08, 1999

Answers

Please find out as much as possible.

An obvious conclusion is that Oxford Health knows how vulnerable a large organization is to IT systems failures. They can say, "Y2K? Been there, got the T-shirt." as opposed to self-styled experts who claim "Well, I've never seen a full-house enterprise system take a hard, extended down but I'm sure that the outtage won't last more than, oh, 3 hours, and even if it does, we can do the job manually."

But what's really going on? Maybe you can find out for us.

-- cory hamasaki (kiyoinc@ibm.net), April 08, 1999.


Cory,

Allow me to ellaborate. In your article you wrote an analogy using Oxford Healthcare that really struck a cord with me. The gist of it was that due to a merger the two competeing computer systems were extremely difficult to operate together. This resulted in serious problem in billing and refunds and healthcare issues for their clients.

What I can add to this is...that Oxford health care has had some serious issues they needed to clear up with HICFA. The Government organization that reviews their "compliance" in responding to clients and sending payments on time etc. This was fallout from their computer systems, as well as simply having oblivious management. Many of which has left. Or was obliged to leave as a result of insider trading. (Selling stock short before the value crashed, which it did.)

My twin sister works closely with the small team of people who oversee their HICFA comliance. It is not fixed yet.

My thought is that it may never be fixed.

If they can't fix their billing and response systems how can they fix any Y2K issues. "prepare for Y2K"

I will conclude that your article was not "just" an analogy. It just might have been on the mark.

Father

-- Thomas G. Hale (hale.t@worldnet.att.net), April 08, 1999.


Thomas,

Just out of curiosity, are you a minister? (RE: the "Father" that precedes your sign off). Just curious. Thanks.

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 08, 1999.


It seemed to me that there was a URL and document floating around the net in regards to Washington State social services employees were told to prepare for 3 months. I didn't bookmark it and regret it. Does anyone remember seeing that document or referance to it?

We might get a better idea how big the problem is by finding out the recommedations to employees by companies. If the critical staff don't prepare and there is problems then the staff member is going to be more worried about family than fixing the problems.

-- Brian (imager@ampsc.com), April 08, 1999.


If HICFA is broke there can be no reimbursement. It is mission critical.

-- Moore Dinty moore (not@thistime.com), April 08, 1999.


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