How to Maximize the Value of Your Business to Attract Investors and Buyers

If you own a business and would like to attract investors or buyers, increasing its value should be your No. 1 priority. There are many tactics such as cutting costs that you can implement to drive you toward your goal. According to a 2017 Sageworks study, businesses with less than $5 million in annual revenue experienced about 7.8% annual sales growth. However, if you are in tech or a healthcare-based industry, 20% growth may be common, according to a 2017 Kauffman Foundation report. 

It’s important to benchmark where you are. Proactively searching for new opportunities will set you apart from the competition. Here are three ways to maximize the value of your business. 

1. Optimize Your Cash Flow

Staying on top of your cash flow is crucial. If you haven’t done so already, I’d suggest incorporating a cloud-based accounting platform to streamline your financial management. As you expand, you will need access to your financials, including your profit and loss statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statement, on-demand.

Instead of bringing the accounting in house, you might consider outsourcing those functions to a third party. Bringing on a fractional CFO and a remote bookkeeping team will help you stay on track while controlling costs. Growing your revenue while increasing your margins will help you get to where you want to be. This is incredibly important if you want to get an equity infusion or sell the business as a part of your succession plan. 

2. Purchase Assets

There are cases to be made for leasing assets. However, if you would like to maximize the value of your business owning assets is the way to go. If you finance the asset, it ends up on your balance sheet and you can deduct the interest on the loan. 

Be sure to consult with your tax adviser. It is also important to utilize lines of credit and supplier financing. Have a conversation with your bank and several suppliers. By negotiating terms in advance, you’ll be in a stronger position when you need to access those funds. This is a great way to leverage your cash to invest in additional business assets. 

3. Develop new revenue

It pays to tighten up your service experience. After all, it’s less expensive to service an existing customer than it is to acquire a new customer.

In addition, a single customer should not contribute more than 20% of your revenue. If so, you are at risk of a serious cash-flow problem should that customer decide to look elsewhere. Consider tapping into your network of suppliers to ask for referrals. Your supplier should be familiar with the products or services that you offer. Educate them on who your ideal customer is. This is a long-term strategy that can lead to significant revenue. 

You should also look at partnering with businesses in different industries who also sell to your customers. These alliances can yield attractive results. Make sure you have an agreement in place to define the nature of the partnership. Be sure to consult with a  business attorney. There is a multitude of ways to grow your business. Find out which ones work for you and put your resources behind them. 

With a little creativity, your growth will exceed your industry’s benchmarks. Consider working with a business adviser who can help you design and implement a growth strategy. With the right team in place, you will have a higher probability of maximizing the value of your business. 

 

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Release the Kratom: Inside America's Hottest New Drug Culture

Many use kratom to quit opioids; others just want to get high. There's a push to regulate the plant-derived drug—but experts disagree on its safety.

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Laser Headlights Can Make Roads Brighter—and Cars Smarter

The new lamps in BMW's M5 are more precise and efficient than their predecessors, and could someday broadcast data. 

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Microsoft Looms Over the Privacy Debate in Its Home State

The software company helped torpedo a facial recognition bill last year, though a state senator—who's also a Microsoft program manager—has a new bill in the works.

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Libya considering CHAN invite

The Libya Football Federation is considering an invite to replace Tunisia at the 2020 African Nations Championship (CHAN) in Cameroon,

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Spanish fourth-tier side Manchego deny Mathias Pogba has left

Spanish side Manchego deny that Guinea's Mathias Pogba has joined fourth-tier rivals Lorca FC, a club whose starting line-ups are chosen by fans via a smartphone app.

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BLACK WOMEN IN HOLLYWOOD: Debra Martin Chase

When Debra Martin Chase began her career in entertainment, the landscape was quite different than it is today. The Harvard Law graduate left her life as a successful attorney behind and set out on a mission to change the images we saw onscreen. Now, after 30 years in the business, she’s one of the most important Black women in Hollywood and she continues to pave the way for those who dare to follow.

“I had a mission to increase diversity onscreen and offscreen and I understood the impact that changing the images we see would have on people of color and on everyone. In those times that I felt like I was beating my head against the wall, I knew that if I was successful it would make a difference,” she says.

As a producer of Harriet, she’s currently enjoying her latest Oscar-nominated success story and running Martin Chase Productions, the company she founded in 2000.

We caught up with this dynamic powerhouse to find out how she managed to move the needle so significantly and to get her take on what’s next for Black women in Hollywood.

“I was watching ‘The Fugitive’ and that’s a great film but there is no color in the movie. It’s an all-white movie. That struck me because you can’t make a movie like that anymore. It’s outdated just by the images in the movie and that is a huge accomplishment. We were so conditioned to just accept that we weren’t a part of those worlds and that’s the power of images. That’s why I got into this business. We take it for granted that we see doctors and lawyers and good guys and bad guys of all ethnicities and walks of life in these stories now.”

WATCH: Cynthia Erivo and Kasi Lemmons on bringing an American hero to life in ‘Harriet’

Debra Martin Chase spent four years running Denzel Washington’s production company, Mundy Lane Entertainment, where she executive produced the Emmy-nominated and Peabody Award-winning documentary Hank Aaron: Chasing The Dream.

In 1995, she joined forces with Whitney Houston and headed up her production company, Brown House Productions and worked with the late superstar on several projects including The Preacher’s Wife, Cinderella, and Sparkle.

“I was Whitney’s producing partner for five years. I had run Denzel’s company for four years and during that time I started developing ‘The Bishop’s Wife’ which became ‘The Preachers Wife.’ Whitney signed on early on and I got to know her and her team,” she recalls. “They were really wanting to start a company and take her acting career to the next level. We ended up partnering and it was really great. I adored her and it still hurts what happened.”

In 1997, she produced Disney’s groundbreaking Rogers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Brandy Norwood, Whitney Houston, and Whoopi Goldberg. The film garnered more than 60 million viewers when it debuted on The Wonderful World of Disney and earned seven Emmy nominations and remains one of her crowning achievements.

“Going way back to having a Black Cinderella that women and girls and boys could look to and say, ‘This is the standard of beauty’ was hugely important to me,” she says. “It was so groundbreaking. It’s so representative of everything that I came to Hollywood to do. I know what that would have meant for me as a girl to see a Black Cinderella and so that was a huge driver. The colorblind casting was unheard of and everybody gave us such a hard time but we were determined. We just linked arms and said ‘We’re gonna do this’ and we just fought the system and got it done and it was this huge hit.”

She also has a soft spot for The Preacher’s Wife.

“The Preacher’s Wife was very important to me because it was really one of the first modern, studio movies that had two major Black stars and an all-star cast and that just wasn’t done in those days,” she explains. “That was a big deal.”

Debra Martin Chase went on to produce a long list of mainstream hits including The Princess Diaries, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and The Cheetah Girls, always staying true to her mission of diversifying the images that permeated pop culture. That mission included helping other Black women make their mark behind the scenes and one such example happens to be Shonda Rhimes who credits Martin Chase for launching her career.

“The full story with Shonda [Rhimes] is I was running Denzel’s company and I had one or two white interns from USC’s graduate program. I called somebody in the administration and said, ‘I know you must have a Black student in the program you can send me. I want your superstar’ and they sent me Shonda. It was pretty clear immediately that she was special. She has reminded me that I gave her the first paid writing job on the Hank Aaron documentary. She went on to write three movies for me including ‘Princess Diaries 2’,” she says.

Despite her commitment to her mission and a long list of successes in the industry, Debra Martin Chase admits there have been times that she felt defeated.

“About five years ago I wanted to give up because people were not making products about women or people of color. I felt like I was throwing stuff up against the wall and not believing in the way that I needed to in the things I was doing. I had spent a year intensely working on a ‘Dirty Dancing’ remake with my dear friend Kenny Ortega and it fell apart at the very last minute for political reasons and it was devastating. I thought maybe it was time to do something else,” she recalls.

“I realized I needed to reboot and re-orient myself in the business. It was time to take a step back because everything had changed around me. After that, things started to shift and open up and Hollywood started to understand that diversity was good business and all of a sudden I found myself transitioning feeling like I was outside the business to feeling like I was right in the middle of it and here I am.”

Queen Latifah to executive produce and star in ‘The Equalizer’ reboot at CBS

Debra Martin Chase continues to knock down doors when it comes to representation for women of color in Tinseltown and her latest deal, (the upcoming reboot of The Equalizer starring Queen Latifah) is a prime example.

“What’s interesting about ‘The Equalizer’ is that it’s a person who is very grounded. The equalizer is a vigilante for the good guys. It’s someone who cares deeply about justice, about equality, about helping people, who can kick ass and who garners the respect of everybody and that’s Queen Latifah,” she says.

Although there has been a huge shift when it comes to representation in Hollywood, Martin Chase recognizes there’s still more work to be done.

“I’ve been in this business forever. This is the best it has ever been for people of color in the business and we still have a way to go for sure. What it really boils down to is Hollywood finally realized that diverse stories and diverse images onscreen are good business. For years we have been saying it’s the right thing to do, but once they realized it’s good business, the doors opened and now the demand for content is so great,” she says.

“I think we need more Black decision-makers at the film studios. It has gotten better, especially on the TV side, but when you look at the heads of the networks there’s not a lot of diversity there,” she continues. “Nicole Brown just became head of Tristar. That’s huge. She has paid her dues to get there but she’s an anomaly.”

Debra Martin Chase credits her determination for much of her success, but her foundation played a significant role as well.

“It helped me that I had a life outside of Hollywood. I was a lawyer for many years and I have tons of friends outside of the business so my whole life and sense of self-worth was not tied up in Hollywood,” she explains. “I have great friends and a great supportive family. That was really important.”

The post BLACK WOMEN IN HOLLYWOOD: Debra Martin Chase appeared first on TheGrio.

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Blood and politics in India

Mahatma Gandhi, an icon of nonviolent resistance who helped lead India to independence by force of will and strength of mind, rather than physical power, might not seem like a person preoccupied with corporeal matters.

In fact, Gandhi endlessly monitored his own blood pressure and had a “preoccupation with blood,” as MIT scholar Dwai Banerjee and co-author Jacob Copeman write in “Hematologies,” a new book about blood and politics in India.

Gandhi believed the quality of his own blood indicated his body’s “capacity for self-purification,” the authors write, and he hoped that other dissidents would also possess “blood that could withstand the corruption and poison of colonial violence.” Ultimately, they add, Gandhi’s “single-minded focus on the substance was remarkable in its omission of other available foci of symbolization.”

If India’s most famous ascetic and pacifist was actually busy thinking about politics in terms of blood, then almost anyone could have been doing the same. And many people have. Now Banerjee, an assistant professor in MIT’s Program in Science, Technology, and Society, and Copeman, a senior lecturer in social anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, look broadly at the links between blood and politics in “Hematologies,” recently published by Cornell University Press.

The book encompasses topics as diverse as the rhetoric of blood in political discourse, the politics of blood drives, the uses of blood in protests, and the imagery used by leaders, including Gandhi. Ultimately, the scholars use the topic to explore the many — and seemingly unavoidable — divisions in Indian politics and society.

For progressives wanting a pluralistic society, the rhetoric of blood has often been used to claim that people are essentially alike, no matter their religious or social differences. The notion is that “if you bleed and I bleed, we bleed the same color,” Banerjee says. “In the first few decades after India’s independence [in 1948], there was this idea that blood would unite all different kinds of Indians, and all these years of caste discrimination and colonial rule that had divided us and pitted us against each other would now be fixed.”

But the idea that different groups in society are divided by blood is also a powerful one, as Banerjee and Copeman note, and as India has moved away from pluralism in recent years, a very different rhetoric of blood has regained popularity. In this vision, different ethnic or religious groups are separated by their blood — and bloodshed may be the price for disrupting this supposed order.

“What’s become clear in the last five years is that this other valence of blood, that it divides us [and has] more violent connotations, is becoming much more inescapable now,” Banerjee says.

That is not what many expected in an age of technocratic and globally integrated economics, but it is a reminder of the power of narrow forms of nationalism. 

“The whole idea of modern politics is supposed to be this transcending of blood [and] ethnic religious nationalisms, and that modern contractual politics is based on less biologically based forms of cohabitation,” Banerjee says. “That never seems to work out.”

Focused on Northern India, where Banerjee and Copeman did their fieldwork over several years, “Hematologies” explores these issues in everyday life and with fine-grained detail. As they examine in the book, for instance, political protesters sometimes use their own blood as a medium of expression, to signal both their own commitment and the serious of the issues at hand.

The authors look closely at an advocacy group for survivors of (and residents near) the site of 1984’s Bhopal chemical plant disaster, which wrote a letter in blood — collected from young adults — to the prime minister, asking for a meeting. Somewhat similarly, Indian women have gained attention using blood in the imagery they have created to accompany campaigns against sexual violence and gender discrimination. In so doing, “they deploy the substance as a medium of truth and a mechanism of exposure,” Banerjee and Copeman write.

Even blood drives and blood donations have intricate political implications that the authors explore. While supposed to be separated from politics, some blood drives are de facto rallying points in campaigns and expressions of political solidarity. Blood drives also serve to highlight a tension between science and politics; some medical experts might prefer a more steady flow of donated blood, while a politically prompted donor drive can produce an unnecessary surge of blood.

“Educational campaigns talk very strategically about this,” Banerjee says.

While writing the book together, Banerjee and Copeman initially had slightly different research areas of interest, but before long both discovered they were fully engaged with a whole range of connections between blood and politics.

“To me, it seemed we found this synergy in the way we worked and thought, and I can’t think of a moment where we ever significantly doubted the process we were going through,” says Banerjee. “Constantly bouncing ideas off another person keeps it interesting.”

“Hematologies” has drawn praise from other scholars in the field. Emily Martin, an anthropologist at New York University, has called it “an extraordinary exploration of the multitudes of meanings and uses of blood in northern India.” 

Banerjee notes that India is hardly unique in the way the rhetoric of blood spills into politics. “There is a global similarity in which blood is always a political substance,” he notes, while adding that India’s own unique history gives the subject “its own flavor” in the country.

Ultimately the story of blood being traced in “Hematologies” represents a distinctive way of examining divisions, conflicts, and tensions — the very stuff of contested politics and power.

“Again and again we see that blood always gets caught up with division and divisive politics,” Banerjee says. “It never escapes politics in the way that reformist and secular imaginations hope it will.”

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Hacking life inside and outside the laboratory

Jesse Tordoff makes cells form unusual patterns. “I have the coolest research project ever, which has the big, broad goal of controlling the shapes that cells grow into.” Her signature shape? Polka dots.

“The idea is that [the process is] synthetic, outside of the natural developmental pathways,” she explains. “My project mostly involves giving the cells genetic circuits to express cell-to-cell adhesion molecules differently.”

A fifth-year graduate student in the Computational and Systems Biology program, Tordoff is passionate about synthetic biology, which aims to create artificial systems from parts already found in nature — in her case, harnessing nature’s ability to form shapes as complex and intricate as the human body.

The field has implications for developing organoids, artificially grown organs, and even things as fantastic as living materials, where engineered structures may one day be able to grow and heal themselves.

Cells as computers

Tordoff’s interest in science was fostered at an early age by her parents, who are both scientists at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. She recalls her father teaching her QBasic, a programming language, and her mother buying her a used light microscope that Tordoff used to observe microorganisms in pond water in her free time. She also grew to love entomology. “It’s official, I’m a nerd,” she laughs.

In college, Tordoff turned to computer science, where she became enamored with the creative process of coding and solving problems. She was also president of Yale University’s Women in Computer Science Club, an experience that encouraged her to reflect on the gender disparities in technical fields and to appreciate her parents’ support in cultivating her early interests in math and science.

She assumed she would seek a career in programming, but eventually Tordoff returned to bugs — this time cataloguing species in a part-time data entry job in college. Around the same time, she was introduced to the field of synthetic biology, and she realized that it perfectly merged her interests in computer science and the natural world.

“I like the biology-as-computer analogy so much,” she says. “A computer runs on binary code, and you can control pretty much every part of it. You can make programs that are human-readable and human-interpretable. Cells are obviously way more complicated; they’re not built from the ground up the way computers are built from the ground up — not yet! But they do work on logic the same way computers do, just with much more complexity and very different mechanisms underneath.”

Becoming the expert

The wealth of synthetic biology labs attracted Tordoff to MIT for graduate school, and she is thrilled to be here. “People get jaded about it, but we’re at the best research institute in the entire world! It sounds pretentious when you say it like that, but then somehow it’s more pretentious to say it’s not a big deal. It’s a huge deal!” she says.

Despite an unwavering enthusiasm for research, Tordoff had trouble adjusting to grad school, and she was plagued with imposter syndrome in her early years. Over her graduate career, these anxieties have subsided, but she often reflects on how she overcame them.

“A big part of getting over my imposter syndrome was having my own research project, which I think is the best thing about grad school,” she says. “I remember in my first year, all of my cohort cared so much about machine learning, and I did not feel called to the machine learning path. At the time, I thought ‘I’m so dumb, I can’t understand that it’s interesting.’ And now I realize that it’s actually just not my scene! It’s not as cool to me.”

The turning point came when she began working in the lab of Ron Weiss, a professor of biological engineering and of electrical engineering and computer science. After six months she got her own project, and she alone was responsible for designing and executing her experiments. “That made me feel like I was the expert — and it was true. And it made me realize that there is something that I’m good at. Realistically, there are a million ways to be good at something, and being honest about not understanding something is way more important than being the smartest person in the room,” Tordoff says.

It’s a lesson that she tries to pass on to first-year students, technicians, and laboratory rotation students, and she has relished her new role as a mentor in her program and lab. “Partially, I see in their eyes that … they may be dealing with some of the anxiety issues that I was, too. I survived it, and I survived it because everyone was nice to me and supported me, so I feel like it’s sort of a pay-it-forward thing,” she says.

A life outside the lab

These days, Tordoff has hit her stride. Living in Inman Square, she enjoys walking or biking to lab, getting takeout from Punjabi Dhaba, and watching Netflix with her boyfriend, Sam. In fact, she finds time for many activities outside of lab and is surprised at the work-life balance she’s managed to achieve. “I thought that you didn’t have any free time in grad school. But I have so much free time to do stuff that I like,” she says. “This weekend, I chilled and watched ‘Great British Bakeoff’ for hours. That was the biggest surprise for me in grad school. When I work late it’s because I want to, not because I have to.”

Tordoff is also a passionate crafter. Making resin jewelry is one of her favorite pastimes — a hobby that reflects her lifelong love of nature. She sometimes wears her creations, which can contain pressed flowers and leaves and sometimes acorns covered in glitter.

Tordoff is grateful for her supportive family, friends, and labmates for helping her to find her niche in graduate school as well as always reminding her that she is more than her work. Adopting this mindset has allowed her to thrive both inside and outside of the laboratory. Their support has also given her a passion for mentorship; she encourages other young, struggling graduate students to be patient, realize that they are smart, and most importantly, learn to fail.

“You just have to keep doing it! That’s the hardest lesson, for sure.”

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GM's Latest Has Sensors and Room for 6, but No Steering Wheel

Cruise reveals the Origin, its planned self-driving vehicle, meant to be shared by riders in a ride-hail service.

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Could China's New Coronavirus Become a Global Epidemic?

Scientists are racing to understand just how bad things could get with a pneumonia-like disease that first appeared in China and has now spread to the US.

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Risking my life to protect Congo's rainforest

How a conservationist tried to protect Congo's rainforest during the country's civil war

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CEO Seeks to Increase African American Homeownership Through LEGACY

Ben Slayton, president and CEO of LEGACY Home Loans, has recently opened two new branch offices located in predominantly black communities. Slayton’s company is based in Las Vegas and is considered to be one of the most successful black-owned mortgage banking firms with a focus on building homeownership due to its unwavering loyalty to black communities throughout America.

Slayton has been a prominent community leader since he became the first African American realtor in America in 1964.

The reason behind Slayton’s use of the “legacy” lies in the fact that it has a special meaning to black Americans. Legacy is basically our desire to leave a large amount of wealth for our families. Homeownership is one of the main ways Americans gain wealth. However, African American homeownership is at an all-time low with only 41% of black Americans owning their own homes.

According to Slayton, “If we work together, we can increase that 41% to something close to where the White population is at 72%, which is over a 30% homeownership gap. We all need to do something about this, and one way is to start building sustainable wealth through homeownership and start leaving legacies for our families.”

The new branch offices are located all over the country including Hyde Park in Illinois, a suburb that was Barack Obama’s hometown and downtown Atlanta which is the hometown of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. According to BlackNews.com, the Illinois location is managed by Leonard Pollard, a 25-year veteran of the mortgage business while the Georgia location is managed by Tony Bryant who is also a 25-year veteran of the mortgage business.

What separates LEGACY Home Loans from other mortgage companies is that it uses the profits of the branches to not only open additional locations but to be able to hire people in predominantly black communities and donate to resources that serve the black community as a whole.

According to BlackNews.com, Slayton’s vision for the future of LEGACY Home Loans is to make it a household name in the black American community “when it comes to the purchase of a new home or a refinance of an existing home, by opening branch offices in every city in the United States that has 25% or more of African Americans in the population. And, by hiring local mortgage professionals in the black communities and giving them the tools, loan programs, and resources, they can compete head-to-head with any mortgage lender in the United States.”

 

 

 

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The Sudanese women breaking taboos by playing football

Women in Sudan are taking on the patriarchy and challenging social norms.

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Understanding Medicare Part C and What it Covers

What is Medicare Part C?

To understand Medicare Part C, commonly referred to as  Medicare Advantage, it is important to know that it is an alternative to Original  Medicare and is run by private insurance companies. Medicare Part C provides everything Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) and  Part B (medical insurance) do, in addition to offering coverage for things like vision, dental, hearing, and prescription drugs. Medicare Part C is optional and there is no penalty for not signing up.

As long as you are enrolled in Medicare Part A and B, you can enroll in Medicare Part C. Just like enrolling in Parts A and B, signing up for a Medicare Advantage plan and/or a Medicare prescription drug plan can occur during a seven-month period that:

• Starts three months before the month you turn 65

• Includes the month you turn 65

• Ends three months after the month you turn 65 

If you join	Your coverage begins
During one of the 3 months before you turn 65	The first day of the month you turn 65
During the month you turn 65	The first day of the month after you ask to join the plan
During one of the 3 months after you turn 65	The first day of the month after you ask to join the plan

Each year, you can make changes to your Medicare Advantage or Medicare prescription drug coverage for the following year. There’s a fall Open Enrollment Period when you can sign up for a Medicare Advantage plan, switch from one Medicare Advantage plan to another, or drop your plan and return to Medicare Part A and Part B. This period is called the Annual Election Period (AEP), and it runs from October 15 – December 7.

On the other hand, you may have waited to sign up for Medicare Part C if you were working for an employer when you turned 65 and had healthcare coverage through your job or union, or through your spouse’s job. This would allow you to enroll in a Part C Medicare Advantage plan during the Special Enrollment Period (SEP) which is 63 days after the loss of employer healthcare coverage.

Who is Eligible for Medicare Part C?

Any Medicare beneficiary, regardless of age, can purchase Medicare Part C. However, you must be already enrolled in Medicare Part A and Part B in order to be eligible for Medicare Part C. Additionally, you must reside within the service area of the Medicare Advantage plan you want.

Here are the criteria for Medicare Part C eligibility:

• You must be enrolled in both Medicare Part A and B. Many people think they can drop Part B if they enroll in a Medicare Part C plan; however, this is wrong. If you drop Part B, you will immediately be kicked out of your Part C plan.

• You need to live in the plan’s service area. This Medicare Part C eligibility will be based on the address that you have on file with Social Security. You must choose a plan that operates in that same county. Some plans will be specific to only one or two counties, while others might span the whole state.
• You must not have end-stage renal disease. This is the only medical question on the Part C application.

Note that Medicare Advantage plans have election periods. This means that you can enroll in the plan during your Initial Enrollment Period or during the Annual Election Period in the fall. There are also certain Special Election Periods  for certain circumstances like moving out of state and losing your plan. In this scenario, you would be granted a SEP to enroll in a plan mid-year in your new state.

Types of Medicare Part C Plans

There are three plans associated with Medicare Advantage. They are Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs), and Private Fee-For-Service (PFFS) plans.

With HMOs, a primary care doctor in a network is chosen by you. That doctor will be responsible for your care and give you referrals to see a specialist.

PPOs have network and out-of-network doctors that you can see and facilities you can use, often without a referral.

A PFFS plan determines whether it will accept Medicare insurance, how much it will pay doctors, other health care providers and hospitals, as well as how much you must pay when you get care. This plan does not require you to choose a primary care physician and you do not need a referral from a primary care physician to see a specialist.

	HMO	PPO	PFFS
Primary doctor	All of the doctors are in a network and your primary doctor is chosen by you. Doctor referral to a specialist is required.	Network and out-of-network doctors you can use without a referral	No requirement to choose a primary doctor. No referral needed to see a specialist.
Out-of-pocket costs	Minimal as you are using doctors in a specific network.	Higher as you have more choices of providers. You can see a doctor inside or outside your network, but if you stay inside your network, you will pay less.	Depends on whether the provider accepts your insurance. As a result, you will need to get written acceptance before each service or risk paying the bill in full.
Emergency coverage outside the U.S.	Yes, limited coverage	Yes, limited coverage	Yes, limited coverage

 

Medicare Part C Costs

The extra coverage provided by Medicare Part C is good, but it does come with extra costs. You can’t opt out of Medicare Part A and Part B, so keep in mind that if you decide to enroll in Medicare Part C, you must pay for it and continue paying the Part B premium.

Medicare Part C premiums vary depending on the type of plan and the state you live in. The average monthly premiums are usually lower than what you would pay for Medicare Part B. However, you still have to pay your annual deductible, copayments, and coinsurance for your Part C plan.

Each year, plans establish the amounts they charge for premiums, deductibles, and services. Only some Medicare Advantage plans have an annual deductible, in addition to the standard Part B deductible. Plans that include prescription drug coverage may charge another deductible for drug coverage.

Copayments are for specific services such as doctor visits. Usually copays are a flat dollar fee. Some types of plans charge higher copays to see providers out of your network.

Each Part C plan can charge different out-of-pocket costs and have different rules for how you get services including whether you need a referral to see a specialist or have to go to only doctors that belong to the plan for non-emergency or non-urgent care.

Keep in mind that these rules can change each year. However, what you pay may change only once a year – on January 1. To learn more about Medicare, head over to Medicare.gov. To learn about Medicare Advantage, Supplement, and Prescription Drug plans, request a free quote.

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Trump pays visit to Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on national holiday to honor his legacy

President Donald Trump made a surprise trip to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on Monday to honor the civil rights leader.

READ MORE: Concerns of public safety prompt cancellation of annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day vigil

Hours before Trump flew to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Summit, he joined Vice President Mike Pence at the National Mall to visit King’s monument. The White House shared a video of Trump’s visit to his Twitter page.

#MLKDay pic.twitter.com/ZCrkxtlQjb

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) January 21, 2020

Kellyanne Conway, who serves as counselor to Trump, debriefed reporters on the visit and said that Trump “agrees with many of the things that Dr. Martin Luther King stood for and agreed with for many years, including unity and equality,” reported CNN.

Conway also brought up Trump’s impeachment proceedings and implied that King would not be happy.

“When you see the articles of impeachment that came out, I don’t think it was within Dr. King’s vision to have Americans dragged through a process where the President is not going to be removed from office, is not being charged with bribery, extortion, high crimes or misdemeanors,” Conway said, according to CNN. “And I think that anybody who cares about ‘and justice for all’ — today or any day of the year — will appreciate the fact that the President now will have a full-throttle defense on the facts. And everybody should have that.”

Trump took to Twitter to point out that the King holiday falls on Jan. 20, the same day he took office three years ago.

“It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!” Trump tweeted.

It was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, that I was sworn into office. So appropriate that today is also MLK jr DAY. African-American Unemployment is the LOWEST in the history of our Country, by far. Also, best Poverty, Youth, and Employment numbers, ever. Great!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2020

Somehow the president was able to salute Dr. King and big up himself, somehow connecting himself with “The Dreamers” regal legacy. Twitter was not letting that slip by without a quick reminder of far a distance 45’s commitment to justice and King’s legacy is from one another.

hey remember when you and your Klansman father were fined by the federal government in 1973 for refusing to rent any of your crappy apartments to black people? good times, right? now what were you saying about Martin Luther King my dude

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) January 20, 2020

Traditionally, U.S. presidents spend the King holiday with their sleeves rolled up, taking part in service projects to commemorate the “day of service.” No service projects are on Trump’s calendar, according to CNN. U.S. presidents have typically observed the holiday publicly, making remarks or attending events honoring the day.

While not doing any of those things, Trump continued his own tradition. This is not his first MLK Day at the memorial, he visited it last year also.

Meanwhile, Black Twitter had plenty to say about a tweet from the FBI honoring King.

Today, the FBI honors the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A quote from Dr. King is etched in stone at the FBI Academy’s reflection garden in Quantico as a reminder to all students and FBI employees: “The time is always right to do what is right.” #MLKDay pic.twitter.com/UKMLAAZw5w

— FBI (@FBI) January 20, 2020

“Today, the FBI honors the life and work of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A quote from Dr. King is etched in stone at the FBI Academy’s reflection garden in Quantico as a reminder to all students and FBI employees: “The time is always right to do what is right,” the FBI tweet reads. It ends with the hashtag #MLKDay.

READ MORE: Marc Lamont Hill slams Trump surrogate as ‘mediocre Negro’

“Oh really?” pondered clap-back king and Temple University Professor Marc Lamont Hill.

“Your headquarters is named after J. Edgar Hoover, who used all of his resources to not only destroy King’s reputation, but to get him to kill himself. If you want to “do what is right,” you should denounce Hoover’s attacks on The Black Freedom Movement and rename the building,” Hill tweeted in response.

Your headquarters is named after J. Edgar Hoover, who used all of his resources to not only destroy King’s reputation, but to get him to kill himself. If you want to “do what is right,” you should denounce Hoover’s attacks on The Black Freedom Movement and rename the building. https://t.co/Buxsq4nQne

— Marc Lamont Hill (@marclamonthill) January 20, 2020

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Disgraced Drexel professor reportedly stole $185,000 in grant money for strippers

A former Drexel University professor has been charged with stealing $185,000 in grant money and making it rain at area strip clubs.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said in a public statement that Chikaodinaka Nwankpa, 57, is currently facing two felonies, theft by unlawful taking and theft by deception. It is alleged that the professor stole research grant money and used it for purchases at adult clubs, restaurants, iTunes and other places. Many of the alleged purchases occurred between midnight and 2 a.m., the district attorney’s office said.

The Philadelphia District Attorney further detailed that Nwankpa spent over $96,000 on local Philadelphia strip clubs and sports bars and $89,000 on food and iTunes purchases.

READ MORE: University of Kansas apologizes for Snoop Dogg’s stripper-pole performance

“Mr. Nwankpa inappropriately and criminally diverted tens of thousands of dollars that were allocated for research purposes toward his own private enjoyment. He betrayed Drexel University and tuition-paying students he was paid to educate,” District Attorney Larry Krasner told CNN.

The purchases were made over a seven-year timeframe, from 2010 to 2017, and were discovered during an audit. The district attorney’s office noted that Nwankpa told officials that the strip club expenses were to cover food catering.

Niki Gianakaris, a Drexel spokeswoman, told CNN: “Drexel takes allegations of unethical or unlawful business conduct on the part of any members of the University community very seriously. The University initially reported this situation to the US Attorney’s Office and has worked cooperatively with federal and state investigations into the matter.”

Nwankpa, who formerly headed up Drexel’s Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, was placed on administrative leave once the purchases were discovered. He later resigned.

READ MORE: Black student calls out white professor who used the n-word in class as an ‘experiment’

According to CNN, Drexel University had previously paid $190,000 in a settlement from another federal investigation into Nwankpa’s alleged misuse of grant funds. In that matter, Nwankpa repaid $53,328 to Drexel.

After Nwankpa was arrested by university police, he was released on a $25,000 bail. He also turned in his passport and is due back in court on January 29 for a preliminary hearing.

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