Billing, coding, and practice management: a primer for today's reproductive medicine professional.

Despite years of recognition that many physicians are woefully unprepared to face challenges regarding the business of medicine, marginal progress has been made. In this piece, we aim to provide the contemporary reproductive medicine physician with an understanding of billing, coding, and, most importantly, cost containment for a typical fertility practice. It is critical for modern practices to not forego hard-earned revenue to insurance companies or not be aware of critical rules and regulations. While running a successful fertility practice requires good medical care, a profitable practice is necessary for overall long-term success. This article provides a brief history of medical insurance and billing, explains the process of updating billing codes, and reviews the revenue cycle, cost containment, and contract negotiations with insurance companies.

Managing mental incapacity in the 20th century: A history of the Court of Protection of England & Wales.

This article explores the history of the Court of Protection of England & Wales (CoP) over the twentieth century. The CoP, which is responsible for making financial and welfare decisions on behalf of those deemed incapable of doing so themselves, presently faces a rapidly growing caseload, and considerable scrutiny and critique. Such close attention to its work may be new, but many of the issues it faces have deep roots. Using practitioners' texts, judgements, and the archives of the CoP and the Lord Chancellor's Office, I review the evolution of the CoP in terms of its structure and caseload, its decisions regarding incapacity, its efforts to manage the affairs of those found incapable, and its long-term survival. This reveals the origins of many of the issues it faces today, the different anxieties and approaches that have animated its work in the past, the ways in which approaches to incapacity have changed, and the value of a historical perspective.

A material political economy: Automated Trading Desk and price prediction in high-frequency trading.

This article contains the first detailed historical study of one of the new high-frequency trading (HFT) firms that have transformed many of the world's financial markets. The study, of Automated Trading Desk (ATD), one of the earliest and most important such firms, focuses on how ATD's algorithms predicted share price changes. The article argues that political-economic struggles are integral to the existence of some of the 'pockets' of predictable structure in the otherwise random movements of prices, to the availability of the data that allow algorithms to identify these pockets, and to the capacity of algorithms to use these predictions to trade profitably. The article also examines the role of HFT algorithms such as ATD's in the epochal, fiercely contested shift in US share trading from 'fixed-role' markets towards 'all-to-all' markets.

For What It's Worth: Historical Financial Bubbles and the Boundaries of Economic Rationality.

This essay is a historical and epistemological exploration of a traditionally crazy economic event: the financial bubble. Venturing into two different moments in the history of economic thinking, it investigates financial bubbles as epistemic frontiers, where rationality has reached its limits. The first half forays into late twentieth-century economics. Since 1980, an interpretive battle over the ir/rationality of bubbles has made those peculiar events, long beyond the pale of the rational, contested terrain on which the limits of rationality have been fought out. The essay's second half turns to one historical crisis, the South Sea Bubble. For contemporaries in 1720, the bubble was a different kind of epistemic frontier. As they tried to reckon what South Sea Company stock was worth, investors were confronted not with clearly rational or irrational choices but with a decidedly unruly collection of similarly plausible calculations. The story of 1720 suggests that studying historical confusion might be a profitable enterprise for scholars of the economic and epistemological past.

Simon and the Sirens: A Commentary.

Even in its extended usage, the concept of bounded rationality bears the birthmark of its origins in economics. First and most obviously, it is about seeking the most efficient (not necessarily the best) means toward a given end, whether that is curing patients or proving theorems. Second, the means are whittled down to the most parsimonious possible, not only acknowledging cognitive limitations but actually imposing them, whether in the form of Morgan's canon, Methodist agnosticism about causes, or Entscheidungsproblem-like restrictions on the acceptable formulation of mathematical proofs. Third, these parsimonious restrictions all tend to minimize the role of reasonable deliberation in rationality, albeit in different ways. As an object of inquiry for the history of science, bounded rationality has great promise. But as a model of the history of science, as one long exercise in bounded rationality, its utility may apply more to future than past science.

'The formula that killed Wall Street': the Gaussian copula and modelling practices in investment banking.

Drawing on documentary sources and 114 interviews with market participants, this and a companion article discuss the development and use in finance of the Gaussian copula family of models, which are employed to estimate the probability distribution of losses on a pool of loans or bonds, and which were centrally involved in the credit crisis. This article, which explores how and why the Gaussian copula family developed in the way it did, employs the concept of 'evaluation culture', a set of practices, preferences and beliefs concerning how to determine the economic value of financial instruments that is shared by members of multiple organizations. We identify an evaluation culture, dominant within the derivatives departments of investment banks, which we call the 'culture of no-arbitrage modelling', and explore its relation to the development of Gaussian copula models. The article suggests that two themes from the science and technology studies literature on models (modelling as 'impure' bricolage, and modelling as articulating with heterogeneous objectives and constraints) help elucidate the history of Gaussian copula models in finance.

'A device for being able to book P&L': the organizational embedding of the Gaussian copula.

This article, the second of two articles on the Gaussian copula family of models, discusses the attitude of 'quants' (modellers) to these models, showing that contrary to some accounts, those quants were not 'model dopes' who uncritically accepted the outputs of the models. Although sometimes highly critical of Gaussian copulas - even 'othering' them as not really being models --they nevertheless nearly all kept using them, an outcome we explain with reference to the embedding of these models in inter- and intra-organizational processes: communication, risk control and especially the setting of bonuses. The article also examines the role of Gaussian copula models in the 2007-2008 global crisis and in a 2005 episode known as 'the correlation crisis'. We end with the speculation that all widely used derivatives models (and indeed the evaluation culture in which they are embedded) help generate inter-organizational co-ordination, and all that is special in this respect about the Gaussian copula is that its status as 'other' makes this role evident.

Multidimensional scaling analysis of the dynamics of a country economy.

This paper analyzes the Portuguese short-run business cycles over the last 150 years and presents the multidimensional scaling (MDS) for visualizing the results. The analytical and numerical assessment of this long-run perspective reveals periods with close connections between the macroeconomic variables related to government accounts equilibrium, balance of payments equilibrium, and economic growth. The MDS method is adopted for a quantitative statistical analysis. In this way, similarity clusters of several historical periods emerge in the MDS maps, namely, in identifying similarities and dissimilarities that identify periods of prosperity and crises, growth, and stagnation. Such features are major aspects of collective national achievement, to which can be associated the impact of international problems such as the World Wars, the Great Depression, or the current global financial crisis, as well as national events in the context of broad political blueprints for the Portuguese society in the rising globalization process.

Risk-taking behavior in the presence of nonconvex asset dynamics.

The growing literature on poverty traps emphasizes the links between multiple equilibria and risk avoidance. However, multiple equilibria may also foster risk-taking behavior by some poor people. We illustrate this idea with a simple analytical model in which people with different wealth and ability endowments make investment and risky activity choices in the presence of known nonconvex asset dynamics. This model underscores a crucial distinction between familiar static concepts of risk aversion and forward-looking dynamic risk responses to nonconvex asset dynamics. Even when unobservable preferences exhibit decreasing absolute risk aversion, observed behavior may suggest that risk aversion actually increases with wealth near perceived dynamic asset thresholds. Although high ability individuals are not immune from poverty traps, they can leverage their capital endowments more effectively than lower ability types and are therefore less likely to take seemingly excessive risks. In general, linkages between behavioral responses and wealth dynamics often seem to run in both directions. Both theoretical and empirical poverty trap research could benefit from making this two-way linkage more explicit.

The redistributional impact of Canada's Employment Insurance Program, 1992­2002.

For a decade or so starting in the early 1990s, Canada's major income support programs underwent substantial reform. Meanwhile, the economy first lingered in a deep recession and then recovered with a period of strong growth. This paper focuses on how the distributional impact of Employment Insurance (EI) evolved during this period. We find that EI was strongly redistributive throughout the whole period with respect to the earnings of individuals, and somewhat less so for family income. But we also show that the distribution of benefits and contributions changed substantially over time, becoming less redistributive. Somewhat counter-intuitively, both the benefit and contribution sides of the program are shown to be redistributive, even though the contribution structure is regressive. These findings are relevant in the current context, as the economy struggles with a combination of high unemployment and fiscal pressures on government spending.

BANANAS: providing child care services to a multi-ethnic community.

BANANAS, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that has provided child care resource and referral services for over 35 years. BANANAS emerged as a grassroots effort initiated by a group of female volunteers who sought to build a network of women with children who needed childcare. As the organization developed, its leaders recognized and responded to additional needs, including resource and information sharing, workshops and classes, and political advocacy. Beginning as a collective, BANANAS has grown into a multifaceted service delivery and advocacy nonprofit operating with an annual budget of $12 million. This history of the agency reflects the development of a unique community-based effort, its challenges and rewards, and the multiple successes that this pioneering nonprofit has experienced.

The Unity Council at 40: a pioneering community development and service organization (1967-2007).

The Spanish Speaking Unity Council (Unity Council) is a community development nonprofit organization that was established in 1964, during the civil rights movement, by a group of community members who wanted to ensure the political representation of the Latino community. Over its 45-year history, the Unity Council has grown into a $12 million community development organization that delivers a range of programming, including social services and employment training as well as facilitating the development and support of local businesses, low-income housing, and neighborhood improvement activities. The history of the agency presents the multiple challenges and rewards associated with development in an underserved community and an example of the important role that leadership plays in the growth of a nonprofit.

Girls Incorporated of Alameda County at 50: a voice for girls (1958-2008).

Girls Incorporated of Alameda County is nonprofit human service organization that has delivered education, counseling, and advocacy services to girls aged 6 to 18 for 50 years. The organization began as a small, local girls club and has grown into a large multi-faceted service delivery organization attached to a national governing body. The history of Girls Incorporated of Alameda County introduces struggles in relation to external and internal factors that altered the way that the agency financed and managed and exemplifies the important role of nonprofit leadership. The organization's many accomplishments have also presented multiple challenges, particularly related to the changing roles of women in American society.

Coleman Advocates for Children And Youth: a pioneering child advocacy organization (1974-2008).

Coleman Advocates for Youth and Children is a pioneering 30-year-old child advocacy organization founded by several affluent community members and children's service professionals to stop housing abused and neglected children in juvenile hall. Today, low-income youth and parents in families of color are now assuming leadership in developing a unique hybrid approach that integrates community organizing with more traditional child advocacy strategies and focuses on increasing affordable housing and improving the city's educational system. The strategies employed by Coleman have also evolved, shifting from insider advocacy with administrative officials to public campaigns targeting the city budget process, to local initiative campaigns, and most recently to electoral politics. This organizational history features the issues mission and structure, leadership, managing issues, advocacy strategies and community relations, and funding.

Asian Community Mental Health Services at 35: a pioneering ethnic organization (1973-2008).

Asian Community Mental Health Services is a nonprofit organization that delivers mental health services to primarily Asian and Pacific Islander communities. From its early beginnings and over its 35-year history, the agency has had to overcome numerous challenges, including gaining legitimacy as a culturally specific nonprofit, combating stigma surrounding mental health issues within the Asian Pacific Islander community, building resources to fund service delivery, and developing an educated and culturally sensitive workforce. The history of the organization highlights the multiple challenges and rewards of developing a culturally specific nonprofit in an urban area as well as the important role that internal operations play in relation to nonprofit expansion and growth.

CompassPoint Nonprofit Services: strengthening the capacities of nonprofits (1971-2008).

CompassPoint Nonprofit Services is a nonprofit organization that delivers cutting-edge research and support services to the nonprofit community. Over its 30-year history, CompassPoint has transitioned from a small management support agency into a nationally-recognized leader in nonprofit capacity building and nonprofit management research. Through its strong internal operations and external connections, the agency has been able to stay current on the multiple challenges facing the local and national nonprofit community. CompassPoint has been a valuable resource for the nonprofit sector as it has struggled to retain its identity over the past 30 years, in relation to political and economic changes that have altered the functioning of the sector as a whole.

Black Adoption Placement and Research Center at 25: placing African-American children in permanent homes (1983-2008).

The Black Adoption Research and Placement Center is a nonprofit organization delivering culturally specific adoption and foster care services. The organization developed as a response to concerns in the African-American community about the high numbers of African-American children entering and not exiting the public foster care system. The organization has undergone significant transformations over its 25-year history in relation to social, political, and economic changes that have altered the ways that the agency finances and delivers services. The history of Black Adoption Research and Placement Center presents an organization that has weathered many challenges because of its strong leadership, its committed governing body, its external relationships, and its internal operations.