A relative’s doctor’s practice just got acquired by one of these private-equity-backed profit-hungry medical chains.
I went with him to an appointment. As a condition of checking in to see his doctor, on a silly tablet at the office, he had to sign away his HIPAA rights for them to sell his charts, along with his identity information, to advertisers or any other third parties. I was beside myself.
Wasn’t long afterward before he started seeing insultingly specific (but medically incorrect) prescription drug ads, almost exclusively, on his TV service.
> As a condition of checking in to see his doctor, on a silly tablet
As with QR codes in restaurants, reception tablets with NDA boilerplate, or electronic security scanners, declining to use an electronic device can lead to the magical appearance of a manual alternative, where lines of text on paper can be crossed out manually before signing and taking a photo for your records.
This is because the consent (of 99% who will not decline) is only valid if the 1% who choose to decline can actually do so. If everyone is forced and it's literally impossible to decline consent, then none of it is consent, and they may as well omit the text and do whatever they want anyway. The act of asking consent for ridiculous terms is actually quite positive, if one ignores the implied pressure of a silicon wrapping.
Well, they can always refuse service, but now their refusal is linked specifically to the crossed-out lines, an action that can lead to various paths. If the deleted lines are known by them to be overreaching, they are economically better off to provide service and earn revenue, instead of losing 100% of revenue and appointment slot to a minor technicality worth much less.
the way it works with a contract, you can always choose to remove clauses - but the other party has to agree to it too. they might acquiesce if for example, they think denying you service might actually lead to a lawsuit that would point out their illegal behaviour.
Healthcare providers or institutions may require a patient to sign certain forms related to the treatment or payment process (like consent forms for treatment or payment authorization), but these forms cannot waive the patient's fundamental rights under HIPAA. If a patient feels coerced into signing anything, they can refuse or ask for clarification before signing. If they don't want to sign, it shouldn't prevent them from receiving care, although certain administrative procedures (like billing or insurance claims) might be impacted.
None of this is surprising.
I wouldn’t say they are disconnected, unless they were already born with a silver spoon and have never had to live like the rest of us. I would say they know how it is for the rest of us, but just don’t care.
That’s been their game plan all along. I think Ring pro was free for Prime members. Now, we need to pay a subscription.
Amazon Video used to be free. Now, there’s ads.
I've been considering using a second webcam stream focused on my screen just to assure hiring managers that I don't have ChatGPT on my screen, or anywhere else. Kind of like chess players do it sometimes on online tournaments. I've been hearing people complain about cheating a lot.
What exactly are you suggesting here? A standardized test that applies to all your job applications? Or, a candidate having to drive to a test center for every company they apply to? Or something else?
the idea is sound. create a basic standardized test targeted at tech/engineering jobs. not actually SAT -- operated by a vendor like The College Board. There are plenty of standardized test operators
When I'm interviewing, I'm putting about 30% of the weight towards "would I enjoy working with this person on a daily basis?", but in the context of technical discussions. Standardized testing won't be able to replicate it.
Discriminate against... a personality that will negatively impact the team dynamics? It's not that easy, to be honest, as every team has its own requirements.
A stereotypical Asian interviewing a stereotypical German might find the German rude in some interactions. While another German interviewer would find it being frank.
Interviews based on personal feelings have hidden biases not even the interviewer is aware of.
Here's another question - stereotypical Japanese interviewer, interviewing, back-to-back, a stereotypical Indian and a stereotypical German for the role. Both are capable and equally technically proficient. How do you choose, other than looking at the team you're hiring for, and thinking how the person would fit in?
You just send out a generic decline, and document it as there's a better candidate fit for the role.
I'm not sure if you guys have been in charge of hiring, but there's no real alternative. In my most recent experience, we had one open position, and after interviewing 10 candidates, 3 of them were basically identical in terms of technical qualifications. How do you choose one over the other, other than the "vibes"? Anyone suggesting otherwise is either living in a weird alternate reality, or doesn't want to accept that working is a cooperative job and interpersonal relationships are very important.
There always will be exceptions for different type of roles and specializations, but that's not what I'm talking about.
I just looked them up, as I recalled those cases differently, and it doesn’t look like anything has to do with declining an applicant due to them not being the right fit for the team.
If the candidate is a protected class and they are rejected for "cultural fit" it will be an easy case for EEOC to raise a discrimination case.
This is effectively how Harvard was rejecting Asian applicants. They created a "personal fit" / cultural fit quality that Asians scored low on . Supreme Court found this to be discrimination.
It doesn't matter if you are truly discriminating, it matters how well you have tangible evidence of the employee not meeting the qualifications for the role.
Interviewing fads are set by these large companies that have the problem of systematically evaluating many thousands of candidates. A standardized test is all they want. Then they could do the rest like college admissions, and at a fraction of the cost.
> The truth is I don’t trust anyone else to run evals.
It's a common sentiment.
But compare https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decisio... . ("People predicting the future performance of college students state that interviewing the students aids prediction, although in fact the interviews make predictions less accurate.")
given the in-person interview is at the end of the funnel by a factor of 500-1000, standardized testing might even open up opportunity for under represented candidates.
Think of how poor the screening process is at the recruiter & CTS (left side) of the funnel, and how many false negatives there are .
If you could offer standardized test at that level, you may be able to keep viable candidates in the funnel longer.
Standardized plus the ability for companies to do their own test after they pass the standard one. So go get prescreened at test center then use that test to apply for jobs. Company either flys you in for in-person or sends you back to test center to do live remote interview in controlled environment.
It's been tried and failed: Sun Microsystems pushed certifications in the 90s. Pass the test on some technology, get the certification. Then they studied performance. The result? More certifications implied a worse employee. The reason was the top performing employees had no time to study for the exams, but the managers of the bottom performing employees were happy to send them off to training and testing. And then the certification fad came mostly to an end.
That was something quite different that got tried. This would be more based on aptitude rather than knowledge.
Of course, they'd miss out on some good talent. But in the article where it shows the quote of someone getting rejected for not inverting a binary tree on a whiteboard, that doesn't seem like a terrible thing to test for.
Seems like our only option is to wither and die while corporations make bank. Sorry to be so cynical, but if something as critical and essential as clean drinking water is too much to ask, can’t help but be cynical.
