New York SBDC Research Network

I frequently find questions related to medicare and medicaid a bit daunting. Maybe that's just me, but I was pleasantly surprised by the eMedNY (the New York State Medicaid program claims processing system and part of the NYS Department of Health) website. Particularly useful to businesses is the page on provider manuals . Using very pleasant-looking icons to represent a variety of services, you can "read about specific rules governing the provision of your care and service to Medicaid recipients. This section also contains billing instructions, as well as pertinent procedure codes and fee schedules."

The number of small business loans outstanding under $100,000 increased 25 percent between June 2004 and June 2005, according to a report released by the Office of Advocacy of the U.S. Small Business Administration. The increase came mostly from credit card use by small business. The report also noted that the number of small business loans outstanding between $100,000 and $1 million increased 5 percent during the same period. The report, "Small Business and Micro Business Lending in the United States, for Data Years 2004-2005," uses both Consolidated Reports of Condition and Income (Call Reports) from June 2005 and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) reports for 2004 to review small business lending activities by financial institutions. This year's edition expands to include savings banks, savings and loan institutions, and American Territories. The report also ranks lenders in each state by their small business lending activities, as well as ranking large national financia...

Google has done a fair amount of work to upgrade blogs on Blogger.com. Visually, our blog doesn't look much different, but there are two changes in particular that will be very helpful to you. First, there's a search field on the top left of the page. You can now search for any postings from the RN blog since its inception in May 2005. In addition, we can now add keywords to every post, providing you with additional subject terms to help you when searching for any of our blog posts. Very cool. We're still investigating these new changes, and we'll tell you about any more tidbits that we find.

Sometimes, I discover things online that are just too cool not to share. It is Friday, so here's a good one: Find Your Furniture Room Planner from the American Home Furnishings Alliance. (Honestly, I was doing research related to the furniture industry when I found this trade association and this addictive tool.) Here's how it works: you pick a room (bedroom, office etc) and you can add furniture (beds, bookcases, plants etc) to it, resize and reposition everything. Put in windows and doors, and change the way they open. Add a rug, and put it at any angle. Locate the perfect spot for your fuzzy slippers. Basically, this is a must for anyone who likes to move around furniture, but doesn't have a team of burly furniture movers at their beck and call. Enjoy.

Or not. In addition to dealing with permitted and prohibited items and lost luggage , there's the issue of flight delays. Flight Delay Information - Air Traffic Control System Command Center . AIRPORT STATUS INFORMATION: "The status information provided on this site indicates general airport conditions; it is not flight-specific." FlightStats.com . Tracks airport and airline delays. For instance, one could find, as the Wall Street Journal did last month, that AirTran Airways Flight 574 from Atlanta to Newark was on time only 26.4% of the time in November and December 2005, and only 11.1% during the first 26 days of November 2006. Likewise, American Airlines Flight 1914 from Chicago to Newark was on time only 35% of the time during the last two months of 2005, with an average 77-minute delay; in November 2006, the numbers were 14.3% on time and a 67-minute average delay. Registration is required for the site, but it's free. Also, as you may have heard, effective today...

We recently received in the mail a promotional letter for a new website called freeRandD.com . It's premise sounds intriguing. Here's some text from the letter: "This new site will be of interest to small business owners that are struggling with how to conduct, fund, and staff research and development projects. This may include CAD work, designing a circuit board, prototyping a plastic part or mechanical assembly, preforming high-end design analysis, conducting market research activities, etc. Not known to many is that there are thousands of university students that are looking for a project of a real world nature to work on. These students are bright and knowledgeable of the latest technologies in design and manufacturing. That is where freeRandD.com comes in. Our objective is to help bring together talented university students and industry." Their website allows businesses, government agencies, or nonprofit groups with R&D needs to post (for a small fee) th...

While I am on the subject... We have been trying to streamline our processes and use the tools we have, that perhaps we were not using to their full capability. More and more, we are trying to do things electronically. It has saved an enormous amount on postage, has made our processes more transparent and cut down on a lot of duplication of documentation. We understand using methods that feel safe and comfortable, and we still encourage the oldest of methods - a phone call- to get in touch with us, but we would request, that if you do prefer to send the written word, then please send it in an email to the RN address. It allows us to share the document between us, and it is instantaneous. Most faxes that we receive come through our individual fax numbers and are automatically converted into an email. Those that come through the main fax number: 518 443-5275 come through in paper only. Usually Cheryl will run the paper around to a researcher and then that person will have to retype the ...