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Hi: I, too, enjoyed this and plan to take a copy into our budget dept. who have just spent the last few weeks and months trying to cut down on costs. Thanks for the laugh. :-) Dick, sending you a copy, too. Enjoy! Joan and Jack >---------- >From: Parkinson's Disease - Information Exchange Network on behalf of Diane >Mchutchison >Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 1996 6:55 AM >To: Multiple recipients of list PARKINSN >Subject: managed care & unfinished symphony (humo > >thought you all might enjoy: >In a message dated 96-04-30 00:32:33 EDT, I received: > >Subject: Cost Containment Humor: The Unfinished Symphony > > The president of a large managed health care facility also served on >the board of his community's symphony orchestra. Finding that he could not >go to one of the concerts, he gave his tickets to the company's director of >health care cost containment. The next morning, he asked the director how he >enjoyed the performance. Instead of the usual polite remarks, the director >handed him a memo which read as follows: > > The undersigned submits the following comments and recommendations >relative to the performance of Schubert's "Unfinished Symphony" by this >city's symphony orchestra as observed under actual working conditions: > A. The attendance of the conductor is unnecessary for the public >performances. The orchestra has obviously practiced and has the prior >authorization from the conductor to play the symphony at a predetermined >level of quality. Considerable money could be saved merely by having the >conductor critique the orchestra's performance during a retrospective peer >review meeting. > B. For considerable periods, the four oboe players had nothing to >do. Their numbers should be reduced and their work spread over the whole >orchestra, thus eliminating peaks and valleys of activity. > C. All 12 violins were playing identical notes with identical >motions. This is unnecessary duplication: the staff of this section should >be cut drastically with consequent savings. If a large volume of sound is >required, this could be obtained through electronic amplification, which has >reached high levels of reproductive quality. > D. Much effort was expanded playing 16th notes or semi-quavers. > This seems an excessive refinement, as most listeners are unable to >distinguish such rapid playing. It is recommended that all notes be rounded >up to eighth. If this is done, it would also be possible to use trainees and >lower grade musicians with no loss of quality. > E. No useful purpose would be appear to be served by repeating with >horns the same passage that has already been handled by the strings. If all >such redundant passages were eliminated, as a determined by the utilization >review committee, the concert would have been reduced from two hours to >about 20 minutes, resulting in substantial savings in salaries and >overhead. In fact, if Schubert had addressed these concerns on a cost >containment basis, he probably would have been able to finish this symphony! > >