Billings Books

The bright inlay pictures and colorful cover of History Of Our World enhance an imposing historical reference book for young readers comprised of almost six hundred pages of history and is enhanced with color contemporary photos and illustrations so important to making a classroom discussion of people, places and ideas inviting as possible. Ideal as a reference for homeschooled students engaged in independent studies, History Of Our World is expertly designed as a textbook for traditional classroom curriculums and is just as readily a library reference recommendation for middle school levels collections.

A dynamite survey of race in education since Brown, both in theory and practice. A true page-turner, the book examines and revises all previously accepted notions of literacy. Evocative language and incisive thought.

Though I lived in Europe for several years, I never had the opportunity to visit Great Britain, so it may be odd that I've long had a strong interest in the history of London. This well-written and beautifully illustrated survey of the capital's course since its founding by the Romans c.50 A.D. is very satisfying in that regard. Billings, a sort of non-academic historian at the BBC, is heavy on the architecture and archaeology of London's churches, but that's about all that remains from the earlier centuries. He also doesn't have much good to say about the British habit of continually tearing down historical structures and replacing them with badly designed office blocks -- which is all the more frustrating since so little that was built before the 18th century survived both the Great Fire of 1666 and the more recent Blitz. There's also a very good "brief guide" to the City's Churches and an extensive bibliography.

I've been teaching college courses on Nazi Germany and the Holocaust for over 10 years, and I've been studying how we teach about Nazi atrocities for much longer than that. During the past 20 years the amount of teaching material about the Holocaust has risen exponentially, and there was already a fair amount available before that. What Simone Schweber offers in this book are in-depth case studies of how master teachers use such teaching materials in their classrooms, and what results they achieve with their students.
Schweber, now an education professor in Wisconsin, started out as an outreach coordinator who accompanied Holocaust survivors to classroom speaking engagements in California. For her Stanford dissertation she picked four popular or acclaimed high school teachers and sat through their entire courses or units about the Holocaust. She administered pre- and post-surveys to all students in those classes, and selected four students in each class for in-depth interviews. And she interviewed the teachers, who also read her analyses of their courses.
We end up with detailed descriptions of (the names are self-chosen pseudonyms): "Mr. Jefferson's fact race," a well-delivered information-only unit; Mr. Zee's touchy-feely never-mind-the-facts adaptation of the "Facing History and Ourselves" curriculum; Ms. Bess's adaptation of the 1976 simulation game "Gestapo" to achieve surprisingly powerful results; and Mr. Dennis's use of highly participatory dramatic staging (of the story of Anne Frank, among other things) to achieve similarly deep learning among his students.
Although the book contains a remnant of a dissertation's worry about its broad use of the term "morality," it contributes more to our understanding of the moral implications of teaching about the Holocaust (now mandated in many of the US states) than the platitudes about "never again" or "tolerance" that fill the many, many curricular materials I've studied.
I rate this a "must read" for any history teacher who takes teaching about the Holocaust or other genocides seriously.

Paradoxically, physicians' compensation has shrunk in spite of the dramatically rising wave of health care costs. Arcane billing terminology, continuous downward pressure on allowed fees, systematic invention of new reasons for underpayments and denials, coordinated drive to oligopsony, and escalating campaign for more post-payment audits, refunds, and penalties - that's only a partial list of a growing arsenal designed by the insurers to increase their share value at the expense of health care providers.

This book focuses on designing accountable and transparent billing processes that firmly place control back into the hands of the practice owner. In contrast to many billing books that separate billing from the rest of practice operations, this book takes a broader all-encompassing perspective and provides an excellent set of tools to evaluate the efficacy of your billing. It uses an analytical approach to present concrete, practical information including procedures and policies that focus on setting up billing and collection, controlling patient payments, and handling third-party insurers. Multiple flowcharts, graphs, and tables elucidate the tremendous complexity of the billing process.

Don't buy this book if you know your practice has already maximized its billing. Do buy this book and return to it frequently if you are looking for a text to help you design a process to maximize your billing and collections.

Yuval Lirov, Practicing Profitability - Billing Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinics and Chiropractic Offices: Collections, Audit Risk, SOAP Notes, Scheduling, Care Plans, and Coding

Rimmer's text stands out among other medical billing introductory texts because of its emphasis on helping the student to understand and remember the material and because of its extra effort to help the student hit the ground running upon being hired. Each chapter, in addition to crystal clear material presentation, has key terms, objectives, terminology side-bar, summary, and review questions. The book also offers real life examples, a rich list of forms, case studies, glossary, index, and an Ingenix Encoder Pro CD for CPT, ICD-9, and HCPCS code lookup and reference software.

A great classroom text and an introductory book for anyone interested in the field of medical billing.

Yuval Lirov, Practicing Profitability - Billing Network Effect for Revenue Cycle Control in Healthcare Clinics and Chiropractic Offices: Collections, Audit Risk, SOAP Notes, Scheduling, Care Plans, and Coding

I had decided to start a Medical Billing Center and purchased all the software, etc. All I needed was examples to try to see if I could really do medical billing. With Dr. Doe, I was able to practice and get a full overlook of the office. This book gave me a complete one weeks work of doctor billing. This book does not leave out any details!! It is complete in the world of billing. It includes real diagnosis, superbills, explanation of benefits, to copies of insurance cards. Now that I have signed a real doctor, I think this book gave me the incouragment and experience that I was looking for, and let me know that I could do this. This is truly a MUST HAVE!!!

I utilized this text for my microbiology class in undergrad. It lists the major parasites, molds and bacteria. Parasites were the most interesting because it shows you what foods are associated with what parasite. Pretty gross stuff but was not boring at all. I also used:
Microbiology Study Guide: Key Review Question and Answers, isbn 0971999635, to help me with test preparation. The questions were quite similar to what I found on my college microbiology tests. Both books helped me to achieve very good scores on my tests.

A shocking note Americans don't know about medical bills: They don't reflect the costs of the medicine itself. "Mired in the Health Care Morass: An Alaskan Takes On America's Dysfunctional Medical System for his Uninsured Daughter" is the tale of accomplished author and geophysicist Neil Davis's fight against the American Health care system and how it is extorting Americans when they are at their most vulnerable - when they are ill themselves or deathly concerned for the well being of their loved ones. With advice to fight these corrupt practices and get the more correct and proper hospital bill, "Mired in the Health Care Morass: An Alaskan Takes on America's Dysfunctional Medical System for his Uninsured Daughter" is highly recommended for anyone who has been scorned by the American health care system and for community library social issues shelves everywhere.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Very entertaining! It was a great surprise to find this gem from an unknown author. The characters are very real and engaged my interest. I laughed, cried and was captivated by the wonderful story. It caught my attention and held me right through to the last word. It was difficult putting the book down since the novel is written with each chapter leaving you wanting more. I would very much like to find more work by this author but haven't been able to find anything else. Highly recommended! Thank you.