In light of the recent GAO report on Cities, I'll post this again for comment.

Year 2000 Computing Challenge: Status of Emergency and State and Local Law Enforcement Systems Is Still Unknown

GAO/t-AIMD-99-163

-- MarktheFart (quke@ix.netcom.com), July 22, 1999

Answers

Mark - I'd personally appreciate it if you'd display some more respect for those of us who try to pass these files to other users; most especially those who are repulsed by your handle.

Nevertheless, thank you for the link.

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Also of interest from the GAO is it's finding that Medicare is having severe problems (previously reported "fixed" by the administration!) with its health care providers .... these companies aren't testing their systems, and the ones that have tested have found severe problems. Partial quote follows.

link is: http://currents.net/newstoday/99/08/09/news15.html ____

Y2K Status Of Medicare Providers Unknown By Bob Woods, Newsbytes. August 09, 1999

Many of the 1.1 million healthcare providers that participate in the federal government's Medicare program have not participated in Y2K computer problem "outrech" programs sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a recently released study from the US General Accounting Office (GAO) found. But the GAO could not determine the actual Y2K readiness of those healthcare providers' information and billing systems.

The GAO reported its findings to the House Committee on Commerce and two of its subcommittees late last month in a study, a copy of which was obtained by Newsbytes.

HHS's Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which runs Medicare, has seen only 2 percent of all Medicare providers participating in Y2K conferences set up by the agency. And less than 1 percent of providers have called a special HCFA toll-free Y2K information hotline.

While many surveys have been completed this year on Y2K readiness of healthcare providers by various organizations, the GAO could not tell from these studies if Medicare providers are ready to deal with the Y2K situation.

"Each of the surveys had low response rates and several did not address critical questions about testing and contingency planning," the GAO report said.

Additionally, "As of June 21, 1999, Medicare contractor testing with providers has been limited, and testing that has occurred had identified problems," the GAO also said in its report. For example, (it was) reported that one contractor tested with 434 providers and encountered initial problems with 123 (28 percent) - 9 of which were considered critical failures."

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 09, 1999.