Assignment For Lowe's And Home Depot Access

Assignmentlowes And Home Depotaccess The Following Websites Lowescom

Assignment Lowes and Home Depot Access the following websites; lowes.com and homedepot.com 1. By accessing the above evaluate, compare and contrast their operational processes in the following categories a. What are the product types? b. What are the market segments c. What is their history d. Is innovation present? 2. After review of the consolidated balance sheets for both I’ve captured the data attached in the excel spreadsheets. Based on this information and your understanding of inventory, provide feedback in these areas. Please compare and contrast the two stores a. Inventory Turnover b. Average inventory trends. c. Sales in like categories. d. Based on your understanding of safety stock, how may it be applied in these stores. 3. Review Lowes and Home Depot websites to determine how they create their products and maintain quality in product and/or services. 4. Review Lowes and Home Depot websites discuss, contrast each efforts in social responsibility and ethics. 5. Lastly I’d like your view on each in terms of efficiency and effectiveness on both. Such as inventory usage, sales trends, any information you’ve gleaned from above, etc. Also are their trends in social media (google)? Modules 3 - Background Managed Care Required Reading D.A. Mains, A. Coustasse, K. Lykens: Physician Incentives: Managed Care and Ethics. The Internet Journal of Law, Healthcare and Ethics. 2004 Volume 2 Number 1. DOI: 10.5580/24ae - See more at: Managed Care and Physician Incentives: The Effects of Competition on the Cost and Quality of Care. David J. Cooper and James B. Rebitzer. March 2004. Government Agencies Soften Stance on What Constitutes Price Fixing. David A. Ettinger and Mark L. Lasser (March, 2008) Diagnosing Physician-Hospital Organizations. Susan A. Creighton. Federal Trade Commission Remarks Before American Health Lawyers Association, Program on Legal Issues Affecting Academic Medical Centers and Other Teaching Institutions. January 22, 2004. Washington, DC. Retrieved from: Statement of department of justice and federal trade commission enforcement policy on multiprovider networks; Federal Trade Commission; Competition in The Healthcare Market place; Statements of Health Care Antitrust Enforcement Policy; Statement 9. (July 8, 2009). Retrieved from: The above policy has been updated (Statement 9 on Multi-provider Network), Read the updates below: Revised Statements on Multi-provider networks: Optional Reading Competition in the healthcare marketplace. Improving Health Care: A Dose of Competition: A Report by the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (July 2004). QuickCounsel Antitrust: U.S. Laws and Regulations. Elizabeth Killingsworth, Esq. Privacy Policy | Contact Module 3 - SLP Managed Care As your third assignment toward completion of the Session Long Project you are asked to review the paper by A. Mains, A. Coustasse, K. Lykens: Physician Incentives: Managed Care and Ethics and answer the questions below. Consider this idea from the paper: “Medicine is a moral enterprise. Because MCOs are involved in the delivery of medical care, they too, are moral entities. However, MCOs are also businesses." Explain the idea that the authors sought to convey. Discuss the physician’s dual function under an MCO model of care. What concerns do you have about the physician- patient relationship under MCOs? SLP Assignment Expectations Limit your responses to a maximum of two pages, not including title and reference pages. Be sure to utilize at least 3-4 scholarly references to support your discussions. Be sure to properly cite your references within the text of your assignment and listed at the end. Be sure to apply critical thinking skills to the write-up of your assignment, especially numbers 2, 3, and 4 above. Privacy Policy | Contact Module 3 - Home Managed Care Modular Learning Outcomes Upon successful completion of this module, the student will be able to satisfy the following outcomes: Case Explain how a managed care organization (MCO) may commit an antitrust violation. Explain the triggers that will send a message for an antitrust investigation to the Federal Trade Commission or Department of Justice. Explain how to avoid these issues in structuring the MCO. SLP Explain the differences between fee for service delivery versus managed care delivery systems. Discuss the ethical tensions in managed care organizations that occur between MCOs and physicians when treatment decisions are made for patient care. Discussion Given the ethical issues around managed care, discuss whether MCOs are good arrangements for patients. Module Overview Basically, managed care and managed care organizations (MCOs) was championed as a powerful force for containing healthcare costs. We will see that this is not necessarily the case. We will also see that managed care brings up a range of structural issues related to price fixing and market power. In the United States after World War II, healthcare was based on an indemnity model or fee for service. In this case health insurers simply paid the bills for services ordered by physicians. These traditional plans provided few incentives for cost containment medical decisions. Responding to the lack of cost containment measures in the indemnity model, private insurers began to “manage care†by exerting influence on the decisions made by physicians. Managed care is the process of structuring or restructuring the healthcare system in terms of financing, purchasing, delivering, measuring, and documenting a broad range of healthcare services and products. Sometimes this process of restructuring took the form of bureaucratic rules, e.g. requiring physicians to seek administrative approval before proceeding with certain procedures. In other cases, financial incentives were used to shape physician behavior. By the mid 1990’s, “managed care†had become the dominant form of private sector health insurance.1 Today managed care organization (MCO) is a general term used to describe any number of health insurance arrangements that are intended to reduce unnecessary healthcare costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on inpatient admissions and lengths of stay; and the intensive management of high-cost healthcare cases. Managed care organizations are structured with an imperative to consider both the impact on costs and also the impact on doctors’ decisions whether to join their networks. These considerations by MCOs to both contain costs and attract physicians are influenced by the values and practices that physicians bring to healthcare. Physicians want to earn a living but not at the risk of endangering the lives they are meant to serve. These healthcare values held by physicians pose a strategic dilemma for managed care organizations needing to contain costs and attract physicians to assemble provider networks. Low cost MCOs with contract restrictions on spending are seen as highly restrictive. On the other hand, MCOs with large physician networks write cost containment rules into contracts that are not overly burdensome. It is interesting to think about how MCOs balance competing interests and ethical issues in cost containment, physician ideals, and quality of care. There are a wide variety of managed care models that integrate financing and management with the delivery of healthcare services to an enrolled population. Health Maintenance Organizations: HMOs are organized healthcare systems that are responsible for both the financing and the delivery of a broad range of comprehensive health services to an enrolled population. HMOs act both as insurer and provider of healthcare services. They charge employers a fixed premium for each subscriber. An independent practice association (IPA)-model HMO provides medical care to its subscribers through contracts it establishes with independent physicians. In a staff-model HMO, the physicians would normally be full-time employees of the HMO. Individuals who subscribe to an HMO are often limited to the panel of physicians who have contracted with the HMO to provide services to its subscribers. Preferred provider organizations (PPOs) are entities through which employer health benefit plans and health insurance carriers contract to purchase healthcare services for covered beneficiaries from a selected group of participating providers. Most states have specific PPO laws that directly regulate such entities. Exclusive provider organizations (EPOs) limit their beneficiaries to participating providers for any healthcare services. EPOs use a gatekeeper approach to authorize non–primary care services. The primary difference between an HMO and an EPO is that the former is regulated under HMO laws and regulations, whereas the latter is regulated under insurance laws and regulations. These integrated health delivery organizations raise a variety of issues with the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission. The issues include price fixing and antitrust problems based on market power. Depending on how the groups are organized- horizontal versus vertical- and who is integrated- competing physician groups or a multi provider network a MCO may violate several antitrust laws. Whenever an MCO possesses significant market power or deals with a group that has significant market power, antitrust implications should be considered. To determine market power, it is necessary first to identify the market in which the entity exercises power. For antitrust purposes, the relevant market has two components: (1) a product component and (2) a geographic component. Price fixing is considered a per se violation of the antitrust laws. Per Se Violations conclusively violate antitrust laws and means there is no further investigation of its effects on the competitiveness of the market because its intentions are so obvious. A Per Se Violation would almost always limit competition and decrease productivity. Activities that fall under per se violations are acts such as horizontal price fixing and horizontal market division. Price fixing occurs when two or more competitors come together to decide on a price that will be charged for services or goods. The per se rule applies to restraints in trade that are so inimical to competition and so unjustified that they are presumed to be unreasonable and, therefore, are illegal. 1Aaron, Henry J. and Reischauer, Robert D., (1995) "The Medicare Reform Debate: What is the Next Step?" Health Affiars. 14:4. p.8-30. Privacy Policy | Contact Sheet Indoor Garden 9,,,486 Paint 7, Appliances Kitchen and Bath Plumbing Lumber Outdoor Garden Building Materials Tools Flooring Electrical Hardware Millwork Décor Lighting Total Sales Cost Of Sales Average Inventory Sales Per Sq. Ft. Average Ticket