Health Care and Lifestyle Choices
Dr. J. Jeffery Burnich
Senior Vice President, System Care Management
MHI Wellness Group

Businesses that promote wellness among their health plan members are getting a four-to-one return on their investment, according to Dr. Jeffery Burnich. Put simply, “To help lower your health costs, promote wellness programs.”

Burnich stressed that an aging, less healthy population guarantees that health care costs will increase in the coming years, unless we focus more attention on wellness. Life expectancy in this country, he noted, increased from 47 years in 1900 to 77 years in 2000. People in America age 65 and older increased from 3 million in 1900 to nearly 35 million in 1996. By 2030 the number will have doubled to 70 million.

With age comes a significant increase in health care usage, Burnich explained. One-third of US health care costs, or $300 billion, are attributable to older Americans (those age 65 and over).

Burnich said that many organizations adopt one of six wellness programs, which are intended to address most of the major illnesses in this country:

• stress management,
• weight management,
• physical fitness,
• nutrition,
• medical self-care, and
• smoking cessation.

Wellness programs work both with those who are healthy and those who are coping with disease, such as someone suffering from heart disease. Using a touch-tone, for instance, patients can report vital signs they can identify from home to their physicians. If the data indicates a problem, the medical staff can intervene immediately, before the problem accelerates to the point that hospitalization is necessary.

Smokers generate 31% higher claim costs than nonsmokers.

Wellness and disease management should:

• Provide financial incentives to plan members who access wellness services.
• Provide wellness programs through seminars, literature, websites and telephones.
• Direct coaching of members.
• Establish a wellness council for plan members.
• Analyze medical claims to determine high diagnosis claims.
• Offer health care appraisals to identify problems and suggest solutions.

Medical expenditures were $1.4 trillion in 2000, and are expected to reach $2 trillion in 2010. Health care costs to businesses increased by double digits in 2000 and 2001.

Burnich directs the physician executives and outcomes management for clinical performance improvement at the Mount Carmel Health System. He also oversees the clinical research trials as well as the process of functional physician integration. He has worked in clinical practice as a board-certified internist.

© 2003 National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems

  http://www.ncpers.org