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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 1983)
Battalion Serving the Universily community College Station, Texas Wednesday, June 22, 1983 Errors found in insurance claims of System employees by Angel Stokes Battalion Staff The insurance claims investigation rogram — initiated in mid-February y the Office of Insurance and Risk Management at Texas A&M — has uncovered $21,600 worth of dis- crepencies in insurance claims filed by Texas A&M System employees as of May 31, the assistant director for the insurance and retirement prog ram said Tuesday. The program began as a trial proc edure for cost containment after in surance premiums increased in the fall for System employees covered by the employees’ group insurance plan, assistant director Mary Jo Hurley said. She said the investigations have involved not only employees in Bryan and College Station, but also em ployees working anywhere in the Uni versity System. The claims investigator, Bernadet te Mayer, is a registered nurse and has a masters in business administration, Hurley said. She said that Mayer is very qualified to find mistakes that could slip by most people. “The insurance claims program is coming along so well,” Hurley said, “that we’re thinking of expanding it.” The biggest aim of the program is to inform employees to check medical bills because doctors and hospitals aren’t infallible, she said. Some of the discovered over charges occurred when a patient was billed twice for a room or was billed for hospital services or drugs that were never received, she said. If we can come up with documenta tion that the services were never re ceived or that duplicate billing occur red, the hospital will write off the charges, she said. Most of the errors found were cler ical, she said, and resulted from com munication problems within the hos pital. If a doctor’s fees are higher than the usual rates charged by doctors in the same area, a letter informing both the doctor and the employee of the usual fees for certain services in that area is written. Hurley said. She said this is a typical practice of insurance companies. It isn’t done to tell the doctor what his fee should be, but just to let both parties know the rates acknowledged as typical by the insurance company, she said. staff photo by Barry Papke It went that way Keith Skaar, left, advises Samantha Conole, a seventh iSargeaMgrader at Allen Academy, who is practicing her golf < in a technique Tuesday. Conole is a participant in Jackie Sherrill’s All Sports Camp, a two week summer camp is longtajjr youth. The camp features 13 activities including genccnfi" horseback riding and football. Skaar is a petroleum he explaBQiogy sen i or from Humble, posing up lipinlollif| id sabota;i| 1 u lals sal ^^ Siexas defense i-Castro oiB Arthur • ‘‘■nding set ss, Special to begin session today United Press International gSHINGTON — The U.S. [approved a $7 billion approp- fns bill Tuesday for military con- lan that makes Texas second in nation for funding. Bie outlay for Texas totals 0l9 million, up $8.9 million from ||ai tment of Defense request of 'V ,,S ‘ b million. That ranked behind [Ornia, which received $484.5 if the popt in . iIS j e „ U ] lion out of $495 million contained iked, i. l- • • i ; ne origin! request. S P° e R 339-square-mile Army base at ipHood got the lion’s share of the ,ii[|’s appropriations, with projects rnent .,. (j Mg $77.1 million. Heading the of 4 major construction projects fought M c on Hood were multi-purpose air- aintenance shops at $13.2 mil lion and $11.4 million, and equip ment shops worth $8.4 million and $8.2 million. The biggest single construction project in the state was at Fort Bliss, the air defense center near El Paso, where a multi-purpose training range worth $18.5 million was funded. The bill contained big outlays for troop quarters at three Texas Air Force bases. Sheppard AFB near Wichita Falls topped the list with $7.2 million for bachelor enlisted housing, and $5.2 million for visiting officer housing. Fort Hood, the Army’s largest base, supports 42,000 soldiers assigned to two armored divisions and a helicop ter brigade under the auspices of III Corps Headquarters. United Press International AUSTIN — A compromise on brucellosis control, an agreement to keep human rights out of the purview of the state employment agency and $15.5 million available for college construction should ease the tasks of Texas legislators beginning a special session today. After less than a month’s hiatus, lawmakers were called back to the State Capitol by Gov. Mark White to resolve disputes remaining from the 140-day regular session that ended May 30. The agenda for the special session, which is expected to last one week, includes bills to extend the life of the Texas Employment Commis sion, set up a state brucellosis control program and fund a library and gym nasium at Texas Southern University to help with a federal desegregation order. White also has been urged to allow lawmakers to debate a state water plan, injury insurance for farm work ers, a human rights commission and several other issues. His official list of session topics was expected later to day. Committee hearings were sche duled for this afternoon on brucello sis and the TEC and for Saturday on TSU construction funding. Comptroller Bob Bullock said Tuesday the state had $15.5 million available to spend during the special session. A motion to continue the operation of the TEC failed on the final day of the regular session when the House refused to accept a Senate amendment that would have placed a state human rights commission within the agency. A spokesman for Sen. Lloyd Dog- gett, D-Austin, said the senator had backed off his plan to try to place a human rights agency within the TEC and instead was considering bills to put such a body in the Department of Labor and Standards or set it up as a separate state agency. “The TEC is definitely the third choice and that basically is not under serious consideration now,” aide Dan Brody said Tuesday. The agency that administers feder al unemployment benefits and helps jobless Texans find work is scheduled to be disbanded Sept. 1 under the state’s “sunset” provisions. ' Cattlemen and senators who opposed a brucellosis bill during the regular session apparently were reaching a compromise that should allow quick action on a bill to bring state regulations on control of the in fectious cattle disease into compliance with federal guidelines. “The governor is working towards a fair, equitable solution and towards legislation that would be acceptable and economical,” cattleman and for mer Gov. Dolph Briscoe, one of the most vocal opponents of state brucel losis control, said Tuesday. “We’re discussing a vaccination program instead of the current test and slaughter program, which is very expensive,” Briscoe said, adding he was unsure whether federal officials would accept a vaccination program. Boy, am staff photo by Barry Pap* stuffed! Wendy Durbin found a unique job this summer. She is working as a taxidermist in Bryan. Tuesday she was putting finishing touches on a‘ Cape Buffalo. Durbin is a second year veterinary student from Mansfield. t) years of N , this naW thepopfj for the [ >daw, St. Krakow- 'Me operates space medicine machine in shuttle ie may t United Press International E CANAVERAL — Sally Ride, Iway through her milestone shut- Itnission, ran an experimental E medicine machine Tuesday urging® 11 ® at developing a “break- meeting »'| u gh” drug to treat a hormone de- solni ien 7' the bat® 16 Challenger’s biological refin- Dn wen [oiif®(periment, expected to lead to here and®crcial drug production in space 1987, was a seven-hour job for the tear-old astrophysicist who once dust between the stars. ■de, Robert Crippen, Frederick lies Hauck, John Fabian and Norman Thagard were in their fourth day of flight and seemed to be enjoying ev ery minute of it. They already have logged more than 1 million miles in orbit. Ride reported turning on the 6- foot-tall drug machine at 4 a.m. and 45 minutes later demonstrated how it worked in a television show from space as Challenger circled Earth for the 47th time. “Isn’t science wonderful?” she said, floating next to the unit mounted on the wall of the lower level of Challen ger’s cabin, next to the main hatch. She explained that an electric field separates materials as a biological solution flows through the machine. Much higher concentrations and greater purity can be obtained in weightlessness than on Earth. “The point, of course, is to separate out the protein material we’re interested in,” Ride said. The machine’s developers are particularly interested in hor mones. The happy-go-lucky astronauts be gan their day at 1 a.m. when mission control radioed up the reveille bugle call followed by “When You’re Smiling.” The crew responded by radioing back a few strains of “Tequila Sun rise.” “You know why we’re such a happy crew,” cracked Fabian. The astronauts’ workday schedule is moving earlier daily to prepare them for Friday’s dawn landing at the Kennedy Space Center. President Reagan will be among those on hand to watch the first return of a spaceship to its landing base. A band of thunderstorms swept across the oceanside spaceport before dawn today, but an astronaut in mis sion control said that was a good omen “we’ll have good weather on Friday.” “Sounds good to me,” said Fabian. The astronauts got some good news early today when mission con trol reported the Indonesian com munications satellite they launched Sunday had performed its final rock et maneuver to go into a stationary orbit 22,300 miles high. The crew gathered some more scientific infor mation today from some of the ex periments mounted on the West Ger man satellite still anchored in the ship’s open cargo bay. The satellite was shut down at 4:30 a.m. to allow a computer to cool. Before it was turned off, however, controllers said some good data were obtained, including ground observa tions from an Earth resources ounseling center teaches good study habits orthgate TI0NS ms andenj business c } other ser'j tions. tor’s note: This is the second y in a three-part series on the as A&M Student Counseling vice. by Robert McGlohon Battalion Staff alking to yourself can be dan- bus to your grades, says Dr. Betty burn, a counseling psychologist the Texas A&M Student Coun- gng Service, even if you don’t wer back. elping students learn to control ative self-talk is one of many gs Milburn does for students It academic troubles. Milburn, it of 14 counselors for the Student nseling Service, specializes in idemic counseling. J“I find that there is a lot of self- Slkthat the students are doing that ontributes to academic problems,” "burn said. “In other words, they lave assignments that are due and tey say ‘Oh, I’ll do it later’ or ‘I’m jjhgry now’ or ‘I’m not interested’ ir'This is boring.’ That ends up in ley’re not doing the studying until t’s too late.” ^elf-talk is a contributing factor to I- what Milburn sees as the most fre quent problem that students have — not studying enough. “I would say that the typical (problem) we find is lack of adequ ate study time and lack of use of some very easy (study) techniques,” Milburn said. An important factor in learning to study more is habit, Milburn said. Students need to unlearn bad habits, she said, and to develop good ones. Keeping that in mind, Milburn said she concentrates on three areas when counseling students: setting the academic stage, learning how to study, and improving testmanship. The first of those three is the most important, she said, explaining that in order for study techniques or test skills to help students, they first must sit down to study. And where they sit down to study can be important, she said. “It’s real ly a matter of establishing habit,” she said. “The key thing is to have a place and to have a time set aside, rather than leaving it to chance.” It doesn’t really matter where a student’s study hole is, she said, adding that some students use the library, whereas other students say there is too much distracting activity there. What is important, she said, is to use the same place everytime, un til it becomes a habit. That studying place should mean “study” to the student, she said, just as the bed means “sleep” and the table means “food.” “The bottom line is do what works for you, but be honest about it,” she said. “Then you don’t have to spend 30 minutes gearing up.” Once a student has established a study habit, Milburn said, the next thing to do is learn how to study, something she says many students don’t know. One important study technique she teaches is how to review notes, she said. Notes are not something that one takes and forgets until just before the exam, she said, but should be reviewed on a regular, preferably daily, basis. Milburn also has advice on how to take notes, how to read textbooks and how to ask questions in class. Another area Milburn covers in the academic counseling clinics or private consultation is testmanship. Some people, she said, just don’t know how to take tests. There are several techniques stu dents can use to perform better on tests, she said. These include: work ing the easiest problems first; writ ing down formulas, equations and rules at the start of the test; and reviewing the answers. There are three basic ways in which students can learn about test manship, study techniques and study conducive environments, she said. They are the academic skills clinic, individual counseling and the peer advisor program. The academic skills clinic is a program in lecture format in which students learn how to study more effectively, Milburn said. “Basically that’s a one-shot program where we overview academic skills,” she said. The clinics are held frequently throughout the year, with up to teq students attending each clinic. However, one drawback to the cli nic, she said, is that, because of the class size and time restraints, there’s not much time for student feedback. For that a student must seek indi vidual counseling. Students are often referred to a counselor after attending an acade mic skills clinic, she said, because more can be accomplished in a one- on-one situation. Another program offered by the Student Counseling Service is the peer counseling program. In that program a student volun teer from the junior honor society meets with the student in need of help for study hints. “It’s not counseling per se,” Mil burn said, “It’s peers sharing with (students) the study techniques that seem to work for them. That seems to be really helpful for students.” For more information about the academic counseling programs, stu dents can drop by the Student Counseling Service office on the first floor of the Academic Building or phone 845-1651. The office will be relocated to the third floor of the YMC A Building in October. inside Classified 4 Local 3 Opinions 2 Sports 7 State 4 National 5 forecast Cloudy to partly cloudy and muggy with a 30 percent chance of show ers or thundershowers through Thursday. The high today and tomorrow near 89. Tonight’s low near 71.