Acronymously Yours

This afternoon I edited job descriptions for the trio of people who will soon be replacing me as PEACH administrator. That meant I got to look over some new acronyms, which is rather like waving candy in front of three-year-old. I just love acronyms. Why say one thing when you can say two (or three)?

As background, here's the set of acronyms I crafted back in 1986, to help put some sizzle into the original proposal (who wants to read pages and pages about self-insurance without a little levity thrown in?):
PEACH: Preservation of Equity, Accessible for Community Health (the overall program)
PIT: Person Into Technicalities (the main administrator; me, in this case)
PIE: Program Income + Equity (net assets)
MELBA: Member Expected to Look after Basic Affairs (the program representative from each participating entity)
TOAST: Time Of All Sitting Together (a meeting of the MELBAs)
BASKET: Body of Advisors SKilled at Evaluation and Troubleshooting (an exectutive committee of MELBAs)
TREE: Timetable for REimbursement Eligibility (the formula by which the coverage for individuals increases over time)
PRUNED: Position Rule Under which Non-continuous Eligibility is Devalued (how an individual's TREE position can be diminished by a lapse in membership or coverage)

As you can see, it was a lot of fun. I even photocopied the original proposal (remember, this was in 1986—way before pdfs) on peach colored paper and had a graphic of a smiling fruit on the cover page. It was a hoot.

Anyway, once the MELBAs decided to divide up the job, they created two new roles to accompany the PIT: SEED and FUZZ. The original stab at SEED was: Someone to Ensure Endurance and Delegation. But I thought we could do better. The SEED is meant as a kind of back-up PIT, or PIT-in-training, so I thought perhaps Support for Exemplary Execution and Delegation would be more on the mark.

The FUZZ was listed as a "FUZZilitator," which I found lame (sure Z's are challenging, but hey, that's part of the fun). This afternoon I upgraded it to: Facilitator with Urbanity, Zeal, & Zest (the process person).

This is an art form, folks!

Before calling it quits for the day, I came up with one more, which I intend to spring on the MELBAs in the coming week. It's for the person (perhaps the PIT) whom we'll be calling on to negotiate more reasonable fees for doctor and hospital bills—which have been soaring well ahead of inflation:

NEGOTIATOR: Network Expert in Getting Others To Integrate and Accept Temporized Offers of Reimbursement

Now if I only had the same success in negotiating fees that I do with words...