The president of a
large managed care company was also chairman of the
board of his community's symphony orchestra. Finding
he could not go to one of his concerts, he gave the
tickets to the company's director of health care
containment.
The next morning,
the president asked the director how he enjoyed the
performances. Instead of the expected usual polite
remarks, the director handed him a memorandum which
read as follows:
The attendance of
the orchestra conductor is unnecessary for public
performances. The orchestra has obviously practiced
and has received prior authorization from the
conductor to play the symphony at a predetermined
level of quality. Considerable money could have been
saved merely by having the conductor critique the
orchestra's performance during a retrospective peer
review meeting.
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.
All twelve violins
were playing identical notes with identical motions.
This is unnecessary duplication: the staff of this
section should be drastically cut with consequent
savings. If a larger volume of sound is required,
this could be obtained through electric
amplification, which has reached very high levels of
reproductive quality.
Much effort was
expended playing 16th notes or semi-quavers. This
seems excessive refinement as most of the listeners
are unable to distinguish such rapid playing. It is
recommended that all notes be rounded up to the
nearest eighth. If this is done, it would be possible
to use trainees and lower grade operators with no
loss of quality.
No useful purpose
would 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 determined by the utilization review
committee, the concert could have been reduced from
two hours to twenty minutes, with greater savings in
salaries and overhead. In fact, if Schubert had
attended to these matters on a cost containment
basis, he probably would have been able to finish his
symphony.
