Vol. 17, No. 38, March 21, 2005

IN THIS ISSUE:

This Reveille Home Page | The Friday Program: A Vote for Wellness | Owens Gets Big Award | We Get Letters | Friday Potpourri | Brown Reclassifies | Retreat Questionnaire | New Member Proposed: Kelly Nolan | Student of the Month: Julie Gockel | The View From The Window | Web Fun

The Friday Program:
A Vote for Wellness

Alex Rule introduced Lisa Schmidt, Director of Benefits for Providence Health Systems. Lisa made her pitch for wellness, describing a program that has had great success among the employees of the City of Bellevue.

“To curb rising health care costs, our best bet is to encourage wellness,” Lisa said. The rise in costs is fueled by a variety of things: the provider community is tied to treating symptoms; there is major cost shifting going on; the demand side of the employer-based system is not functioning well; and government regulations are tremendously burdensome to the system.

What is an option? Behavior modification.

Schmidt works for a company that provides health care to companies and employees, directing the benefit programs for Providence Health Systems to 38, 000 employees.

“The options are few at this point, but following a path of behavior modification is the way to curb health care costs — by encouraging wellness.”

The problem is that health care costs continue to rise, up 40 to 45% in past three years as reported by members of the audience. Schmidt said that Providence Health Systems paid out “a billion dollars for employees last year. Employees are customers and users of our main product — health care. “But, we must offer alternatives to stem these rising costs.”

Schmidt said, “All of us can become better users of healthcare. We should shop hospitals like we shop for groceries. The system has become more complex. Users can’t even figure out co-pays. The various acronyms — HRAs, HSAs, etc — make figuring out the system more challenging.”

So, what’s the current situation?
“We’re getting older and demand more care. We want drugs to keep us going, we are insulated from the true costs of health care. We are overweight, sedentary, stressed out, depressed and diabetic. At this rate, our life history will decline, life expectancy will decline.”

Schmidt said the solution to the health care crisis is to “prevent those diseases that are preventable and to reduce the effect of lifestyle disorders. WE have to lead by example.”

She asked her BBRC audience if they “know your numbers? For an overweight nation, obesity is now the #2 killer.” She referred the membership to the Body Mass Index (BMI) information from the National Institutes of Health.

“We shouldn’t look like apples. The cost of obesity is $100 billion annually obesity. Just losing 5 to 10% of your body weight will pay great dividends.

What else can you do?

Quit smoking

Reduce high blood pressure

Find out about Diabetes

Control cholesterol

So, what do we do?
We must lead by example. By adopting a wellness lifestyle while you still have time you can turn your own situation around. If you don’t take care of the package, you’re in trouble. “We don’t have the right to ask our employees to do what we won’t do ourselves. We should be role modeling a healthy lifestyle.”

Schmidt offered her best advice and that is to “make wellness available at work, no cost.” The City of Bellevue offers their employees a combination of the following:

Enrolling in Weight Watchers, with 75% of the entry fee ($100) being rebated if the employee completes the program;

Enroll employees in the American Heart Association Walking program (free);

Sponsor office potlucks with healthy menus;

Offer flex time and creative incentives to modify behavior.

The Return on Investment has resulted in an ROI of $380 per employee per month. The City has saved over $4,000 per participant per year in health care costs.

Lisa closed her program with an admonition to improve the quality of life by losing weight, which results in greater self esteem, lower drug usage, more physical comfort through better mobility. “Think big ... start small. Lead by example ... saving money saves jobs. Life is worth it. Prevention is the key.”

For her presentation, Lisa received a certificate noting that 1220 pounds of fresh food from Rotary First Harvest has been donated in her name to area food banks. Thanks to Alex Rule for his introduction.

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