U.S. waistlines continue to grow

What a great article about obesity in our country.  Instead of getting healthier, we are getting fatter.  Please pay particular attention to the suggestions on what we can do to stop the trend.  Until next time...

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General Observations about Overall Health

When I am walking down the street, having dinner with friends or at a client's office, I can't help but notice how unhealthy our society has become.  Without fail, 60% of the people are overweight.  In fact of this 60%, half of them are obese.  I have had numerous conversation with friends, family members and business associates about this topic.  I have heard all of the excuses: its hereditary, no time, too expensive and my favorite, I don't care.  The only one that can be medically argued is the hereditary excuse.  Even then, this does not prevent someone from changing their lifestyle.  Did you know that 70% of healthcare costs are lifestyle related?  What you do on a daily basis from eating to exercise to smoking to drinking can affect an astronomical amount of healthcare dollars, i.e. about $700 billion.  Personally, I am sick and tired of unhealhty individuals causing our healthcare costs to increase every year.  Is it really that hard NOT TO EAT AT MCDONALDS every day, not to take a 30 minute walk once a day and especially not to put a cigarette to your lips?  When you think about the situation we are in, a change needs to occur.  We need to take preventative measures to keep our society from becoming more and more unhealthy.  Stay tuned for the Complete Wellness+ Program which will address these issues, the issues of mind, body and soul.  Until next time...

Consumer Driven Healthcare

Here is a great article about Consumer Driven Healthcare.  The main point of the article is about some of the hangups employers have about the process.  The key components to a a successful CDHP is access to information and education/ communication.  I am a big fan of the CDHP but know it is not going to be successful without a Wellness Program.  Enjoy the read.  Until next time...

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Online Enrollments versus Manual Enrollments

Wow!  What a great tool to show a client the cost savings one can achieve by going online versus a traditional enrollment.  A lot of clients still enroll manually every year because they do not know what it truly costs to conduct benefit enrollments year in year out.  This tool shows an employer why they need to go electronic versus manual.  Please read the full article and check out the demo at www.onlinebenefits.com.  Until next time... 

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Child Obesity

Here is another great article on Health and Wellness.  This one deals with Childhood Obesity and how it has to be a family effort and not an individual effort.  Three main points that can apply to everyone and not just children are:

1) It's not a race: It takes time and dedication to unlearn unhealthy behaviors and to develop new, healthy ones.

2) Think small: Small, gradual changes are easiest to follow and incoporate into our daily lives.

3) Set individual and family goals: Goals need to be achievable and measurable.

There are other great points in this article which is why you should read the entire article.  Until next time...

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10 Ways to Stretch Your Healthcare Dollars

These are some great ideas on how to stretch your healthcare dollars.  The ones that stand out to me are number five, "Only go to the hospital emergency room for true emergencies", number eight, "Live a Healthy Lifestyle", number nine, "Make careful decisions about prescription drugs" and number ten, "Use a healthcare spending account to pay for medical expenses with pre-tax money".  Until next time...

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A Disability Study According to Met Life...

I just finished reading an article by Met Life which reveals that the five most costly medical conditions drive 60% of lost workdays to do Short Term Disabilities.  These five ailments- heart conditions, trauma, cancer, mental disorders and pulmonary conditions are the one's that make up the 60%.  If you look at these five diseases, you see that at least 3 of the 5 are lifestyle related to some degree.  In terms of claims, our society focuses mainly on health insurance and not on other areas that could be affected like disability and life insurance.  It makes to implement a program that will not only save your health plan money but save your disability and life programs money.  What I am talking about is a Corporate Wellness Program.  More details to come.  Until next time...

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Patient Obesity and Diagnostic Testing...

What a great article about obesity.  Because an individual is obese, their medical care can be compromised.  I want to point out a couple of main points that I found very insightful.  1) "Patients may not realize that there are two aspects to being overweight, one which is the increased risk of a number of different diseases," Nazarian added.  "They may not realize that once they actually get sick, their size is going to limit the ability to even tell them what's wrong."  2) Obese people are more likely to develop ilnesses such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease.  3) Obese people put hospital personnel at greater risk for injury.  4) Hospitals need special equipment, special beds, the imaging is lower quality so it takes longer to complete.  It just reinforces the fact that our society is in a downward spiral because we refuse to change our lifestyle.  Please read the full article as this is just a summary.  Until next time...

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Public Attitude towards Wellness...

Here is a great article about public perception towards wellness.  I am a firm believer in rewarding those individuals who are doing the right things on an everyday basis to insure a healthy lifestyle.  I think it is unfair to those with a healthy lifestyle who have to "pick up the slack" for those individuals who do not exercise, who eat poorly and who smoke.  Their healhcare costs should be higher than those individuals who are doing what they should to stay healthy.  My next installment will deal with Preventive Care and how it is an integral part of the Wellness Idea.  Until next time...

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The Future of Healthcare

For the past 100 years, the primary focus of healthcare has been reactive and not proactive.  As you can see from the double digit increases you have been experiencing for the past 10 years, the reactive measure is no longer working.  For years, people would only go to the doctor if they needed treatment, i.e. a prescription or surgery.  The trend has changed to the preventaive measure, i.e. finding out what is could go wrong before something actually happens.  There are three areas I would like to discuss over my next several blogs, preventative care, health management and disease management.  For today's blog, I am going to provide you with an overview of all three. 

  1. Preventative Care deals with the concept of doing something on the front end of a situation before you have to something on the back end.  As it relates to healthcare, an individual should be taking a snap shot of their overall health on a yearly basis through biometric screenings and health risk assessments. 
  2. Health Management deals with managing a person's lifestyle before it becomes a disease.  As it relates to healthcare, once an individual establishes their standard of health, their results need to be managed by a trained professional who knows how to address the individual's results.
  3. Disease Management deals with managing an individual after they have been diagnosed with a disease.  As it realtes to healthcare, once an individual determines their health status with a biometric screening and a health risk assessment, they are going to know if they have any significant diseases.  If the disease is significant, i.e. diabetes, heart disease, etc. a clinical professional is going to make sure that this person is doing the necessary things on a daily basis to control the disease.

Healthcare will not succeed unless all three of these areas work together.  Until next time...

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