Don't take your boss' counteroffer

Here are three of the week's top pieces of financial advice, gathered from around the web:

Don't take your boss' counteroffer

Announcing plans to leave a job and then deciding to stay because of a counteroffer is usually a mistake, said Kelly Kay and Michael Cullen at Harvard Business Review. Senior executives and human resource leaders surveyed on the topic estimated that accepting a current employer's counteroffer "will work out well in only 5 percent to 25 percent of cases." Nearly 40 percent said it would have an adverse effect on one's career. The biggest consequence: "diminished trust and compromised reputation," both at the employee's current company and at the spurned company whose offer was initially accepted. Other consequences include "a boss who may feel blackmailed and colleagues who resent what they see as special treatment."

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Healing patients, hospitals see donors

In search of deep-pocketed donors, a growing number of nonprofit hospitals are examining patients' finances along with their medical conditions, said Phil Galewitz at Kaiser Health News. Many hospitals conduct patient wealth screenings, using software that mines public data such as property records. Promising targets might get a visit from a hospital executive, or be granted amenities. At some hospitals, doctors and nurses are trained to "identify patients who have expressed gratitude for their care, and then put the patients in touch with staff fundraisers." Some find so-called grateful-patient programs troubling. "Getting physicians involved in philanthropy is something fraught with danger," said Mark Rothstein, a bioethicist at the University of Louisville.

'Sick shaming' has its moment

Amid the cold and flu season, offices are rife with "sick shaming" aimed at colleagues who insist on coming to work while ill, said Chip Cutter at The Wall Street Journal. Academics even have a name for working when you really, really shouldn't: "presenteeism." Now "the healthy have had it" with being forced to work alongside sneezing co-workers, especially those eligible for paid sick days. Tactics include spraying disinfectant, taking to Twitter to complain and solicit advice, offering cough drops, and more aggressive measures. Michelle Bowden, a consultant in Canberra, Australia, has "followed snifflers and nose blowers around with disinfectant" and once persuaded a flu-stricken colleague to don a hazmat suit. All is fair, said one proud sick-shamer: "If one person gets sick, we all get sick."