Nancy J. Beckley (nancy@nancybeckley.com) is President of Nancy Beckley & Associates LLC, a rehab compliance consulting firm in Milwaukee, WI.
Have you heard the phrase, “Everything old is new again”? It seems odd in today’s technology and communication. Imagine the time when the mail was delivered by Pony Express. A message would take more than a week to travel cross-country. Fast-forward to the invention of the telegraph in the mid-nineteenth century and rapid development of telegraph companies that sent “cables.” Coded expressions or “ciphers” were used to shorten phrases to limit characters, such as ABSORBED: “Call for ticket at White Star Line Office.”[1] (Maybe for a ticket on the HMS Titantic?)