A Prevention Program That Susidizes Healthcare Spending

What if staying healthy was a means of earning money or reducing taxes? Would this help reduce the cost of maintaining health and rising risks of chronic illnesses? What if this could drastically reduce your healthcare premiums? Would you even be interested in participating in a program that offered this option? It sounds at first glance a bit improbable ,but let's take a closer examination . Companies have incentive in the marketing of medical devices and drugs with a large profit margin. The market has created an incentive to improve health for corporations by "selling" the idea you will be healthier with their products . The same idea is with hospitals and managed care corporations. Currently our drive to maintain health is based on this corporate model that health can be maintained by "buying" it from the market(drug companies, medical device companies, hospitals and insurance companies). But, is this the only model? What if there was the same incentive given to individuals to maintain personal health in a means to pay for future illness. The incentive to prevent disease and maintain health would be "incentivized" by giving a unit of "health credit"(monetized) that can be built up over the time an individual stays fit and would later pay for one's possible future illness. The fitter the individual stays and reduces a "burden" on a health system, the more they are rewarded with "health credits" which is put into their health care accounts. By reducing the premature occurence and number of illnesses in one individual you can quite possibly reduce the costs of healthcare for an entire system. Epidemiologist and public health scientists along with actuaaries have the ability to calculate what an individual "saves" or "costs" a healthcare system via numerous compiled data stored by managed care corporations and academic studies by universities and public government agencies. We also have data on what preventive measures such as daily fitness, nutritional support, prevention education, wellness-health promotions, behavior modification and personal responsibility can have positive effects on outcomes. This preventive system would allow an individual to build health credit based on his or her account based on their maintaining a good cholesterol, blood sugar or body weight .These and other measures could be "incentivized" with these credits before one's health is affected manifesting as high blood pressure and diabetes. With this the individual who preserve better health could be given more access to fitness programs to maintain their behavior, leisure health activities, spa health, nutritional supplements, and many other perks to promote this healthy lifestyle. By making this more available individuals see and "feel" what their health is building for themselves and the communtiy. If the reduction in illness and improvement in wellness can reduce annual costs it should then reduce premiums. Human behavior shows that just getting a pat on the back by the doctor when you have a good glucose or cholesterol is not enough. The current managed care system is not set up as a "rewards" or "health credits" system. This often is what demoralises numerous individuals towards obtaining or sustaining good health . In this system individuals who are younger and those who participate more in fitness will reduce the anticipated future costs of healthcare so that the major use of their accounts can be utilized at the development of either a chronic or catastrophic illness, which is usally ,but not always later in life. Smaller first aid or minor acute disease often occurs earlier in life still has to be serviced by some elements of the current managed care system , but even those could be reduced even with a preventive program to some significant degree. In this system the profit margin is shifted from the corporate model that exists towards one directed to that of the individual that invests in prevention and participates in a system that boosts their own health until it is needed and therefore reduces general healthcare costs across the board. A sizeable amount of the cost of healthcare is due to lifestyle or personal behavioral choices based on nutrition and activity. If positive behavior is "rewarded", then a shift in choice can be possibly induced, but corporate America will have to want to share in the profits and understand the wide measure of the benefits. Then after this a system that looks at controlling high costs of acute and chronic care can be hammered out as it pertains to a population's maintenance of preventive measures and fitness. Currently the majority of ones's premium-based medical insurance(managed care based) is utilized in later life. By educating youth, students and the labor force early on, we reduce the time when chronic disease occurs and its multiple layered effects in later life. Science may not know exactly right now how to extend life beyond the ninth decade adequately, but we can improve the quality of all life from early prevention measures. This element of the healthcare system, "real prevention", is the only factor missing in the current equation. Purely focusing on acute and chronic care misses the real cause of run away costs and over utilization. Physicians learn that if you only treat a symptom and not know its origin, you are only temporarily "fixing" a problem until it grows to an incurable stage altogether..."real prevention" , based on maintaining daily lifestyle behaviors is the glue that will "hold it together(healthcare system)before costs sore beyond our control. Marcus Wells, MD, MPH Doctor wells is a previous clinical associate at the N.I.H( National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute) . He has also served in the U.S. Public Health Service(U.S. Health & Human Services) Learn more about how to obtain amd sustain your health at www.fitfamily360.com