Don Mecoy
Business Writer

A recent study suggests that getting a promotion at work could be bad for you.

LiveScience.com reports on the study:

“Our research finds that the mental health of managers typically deteriorates after a job promotion, and in a way that goes beyond merely a short-term change,” said Chris Boyce of the University of Warwick. “There are no indications of any health improvements for promoted people other than reduced attendance at GP surgeries [i.e. doctors visits], which may itself be something to worry about rather than celebrate.”

However, it probably still is preferable to a pink slip.

The University of Warwick research used data from an annual survey of Brits, included information about some 1,000 people who had been promoted. The findings will be presented later this month at a conference of the Royal Economic Society.

Don Mecoy
Business Writer

Our team found that certain aggregated search queries tend to be very common during flu season each year. We compared these aggregated queries against data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and we found that there’s a very close relationship between the frequency of these search queries and the number of people who are experiencing flu-like symptoms each week. As a result, if we tally each day’s flu-related search queries, we can estimate how many people have a flu-like illness.

Don Mecoy
Business Writer

After hearing a group of unhappy Oklahoma physicians this past weekend discuss the diminishing returns from the Medicare program, I came to this conclusion: If Congress keeps cutting reimbursements to doctors there soon may be very few doctors participating in the program.  

 In fact, one doctor at Saturday’s Medicare Forum at the Oklahoma School of Science and Mathematics stood up and said he was “opting out of the program.” 

 That may be just what some in Congress want, one doctor told me. The concept of a government managed health care program doesn’t sit well with some Congressmen, so they want to see Medicare die off and replaced with a privately run program.  The problem with that scenario is that there aren’t any options on the table to replace Medicare. 

 At one point in Saturday’s forum, Dr. William Hazel, a trustee with the American Medical Association, asked the doctors, “who thought Medicare would disappear within five years?”  

 Not a hand was raised. 

  ”We don’t have a replacement for it that works,” Hazel said.  “We are on the clock. We have 16 and a half months before we run into a 21 percent clip (in reimbursements). The punch line is that to continue to have influence in the process we have to work together.” 

 Jim Stafford  

Business Reporter