The Corner Pharmacy: Vaccinations provide “ounce of prevention”
The old adage from Ben Franklin, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” might be the one piece of advice small-business owners should take seriously this year. How serious is it? The government predicts that between 10 and 60 million Americans are affected by seasonal flu. That contributes to nearly 70 million […]
Managing the Blues
At the Roots N’ Blues N’ BBQ Festival last Saturday afternoon, three bands were playing, thousands of people were streaming downtown and hundreds of volunteers, staff and security workers were managing the crowd when the weather forecast proved correct — it started to rain. Then it started to pour.
Nicole Thieret, who was managing the festival for Thumper Entertainment for the first time, stayed calm while troubleshooting over her walkie-talkie and cell phone. “We had rain for about an hour, and it kind of cleared the streets out, but everyone came right back out.” The musicians, they kept on playing.
KFRU’s Lile most popular in morning news talk
Every weekday morning, commercial radio station hosts David Lile and Tom Bradley compete with the public station KBIA for a share of the news-talk listeners in the Columbia market. Lile, who’s been hosting KFRU’s “Morning News” program from 6 to 9 a.m. for a dozen years, has helped the AM station keep the top spot […]
Flying High
What a difference a year has made in the life of Columbia Regional Airport.
Airport bustling
As Kevin Pentico gathered his luggage at Columbia Regional Airport, he had just one complaint about his Delta flight from Memphis on the 34-seat turboprop plane.
“It’s so loud,” Pentico said. “Instead of peanuts, they should pass out earplugs.”
Insurance reform’s high stakes
The health care reform bills competing for votes in Congress are attempts to counteract the swiftly rising costs and rapidly growing ranks of uninsured Americans that threaten the nation’s medical system, according to the Missouri Foundation for Health. During a symposium on global health at Westminster College, Ryan Barker, the foundation’s health policy analyst, outlined […]
Cynergy Health
Columbia Allergy and Asthma Specialists, a company started two years ago by Marcy Markes and Dr. Cynthia Hayes, has changed its name to Cynergy Health and moved to a larger space near the intersection of Forum and Nifong boulevards. “It was my hope that, instead of sending patients elsewhere for different things, we wanted it […]
Customer Service: Empathy Challenge: Columbia woman breaks out of her comfort zone
On March 4, I was sitting in the Jefferson City Correctional Center, overwhelmed by my surroundings and pondering the paths that brought me, and others, to this place. No, this is not an exposé of my road to crime. Instead, I’d like to share with you a road to discovery I began traveling earlier this […]
Reform requires more doctors
If Congress passes legislation providing universal health care, Sen. Claire McCaskill acknowledges that it would be a challenge to find enough primary care physicians to care for an influx wave of new patients. One of the more contentious aspects of pending federal health care legislation is known as the “public option,” a mechanism that would […]
Medical students provide rural care
Editor’s Note: The following is an article from the University of Missouri School of Medicine. The school points out that the Missouri Department of Health estimates that 108 out of 144 Missouri counties are designated as underserved in terms of physicians. With a government-run public insurance option under consideration and an aging population, the primary […]
G.A. to reconsider autism coverage
The Missouri General Assembly in January is expected to reconsider legislation that would force insurance companies to cover certain medical costs of children with autism. Sen. Scott Rupp’s bill outlining insurance coverage of the developmental disorder passed the Missouri Senate by a wide margin, but it did not come to a final vote in the […]
Storms, recession reduce insurance company profits
Insurance companies market themselves as calm, steady and always there when calamities strike. During the past year, they’ve had to maintain that composure while watching their profits eaten away by an extraordinary number of natural disasters and one of the century’s worst economic maelstroms. The Midwest, where Columbia’s three largest insurance companies do most of […]