By Evan Falchuk, president, CSO, Best Doctors
Health care is increasingly population-based and impersonal. But a patient is not a population. She is a human being with her own personal and family medical history. But managed care programs too often treat her like a number.
The truth is it’s possible to help her — and every other patient — in a way that improves not only their health, but the health of the population as a whole. It starts with making sure each person gets the right diagnosis and right treatment.
At Best Doctors, we’re rolling out a program called Clinical Integration that turns the traditional approach of managing health care on it head. It produces important outcomes that improve the health care of employees, and ensures a company’s existing health care programs are as effective as they can be.
So why does this matter? Despite great medical advances, 20 percent of people are misdiagnosed. Think about those odds—would you get into your car each morning if you knew you had a one in five chance of a car crash? The reality is that 20 percent of employees in health care benefit programs—even the best programs—have been misdiagnosed. And if they get the wrong diagnosis, they are likely getting the wrong treatment, too. Think about what that means in terms of needless suffering and wasted resources. Now think about what that means to your company’s bottom line.
Studies show close to a third of health care costs are wasted. As such, more and more employers are realizing the time is now to address this issue head on.
This is where clinical integration comes in. It serves employees in their time of need. It means reviewing the care of employees in all of your health care programs and making sure each one has the right diagnosis and treatment. It means referring those employees back into the health care programs best matching their needs. It takes the guesswork out of which services each employee actually needs. Taking this approach is surprisingly easy to do; it just means sitting down with your health care vendors who provide health care services and telling them they have to be accountable for making certain every one of your employees gets the correct resources they need.
Already, many of the largest and most progressive companies in America are using clinical integration to deliver customized solutions to their employees. These companies know their employees are getting the best answers, resources and most appropriate options needed.
A key aspect of clinical integration is that through it, employees are better able to limit their risk of being misdiagnosed, avoiding needless suffering and wasted resources in the process. Armed with information about their own health, many of them will play a more active role in their health care, and will insist on getting the right answers, right diagnosis and right treatment.
Clinical integration is not just the latest buzz word or hot “trend.” It is a bona fide movement. Furthermore, as a growing number of companies are discovering, it is a win-win situation, for employer and employee alike. Employers make more efficient use of existing benefit offerings, and see improved employee health and reduced absenteeism. They are able to better communicate with employees about all of the useful health services available to them, and at the same time achieve significant cost savings by doing so. Clinical integration is simply smart business.
For their part, employees experience a more customized interaction with their benefits offerings, and with the quality and responsiveness of their health care overall. They become truly empowered to be their own best health advocates—translating into a healthier, happier, and more productive talent pool.
I predict that in the space of five years, clinical integration will be mandated by companies that truly understand the value of a healthy workforce, one fully engaged in its own health care. Businesses will wonder why they didn’t try this approach sooner. Just wait and see.
About the Author:
About the Author:
Evan Falchuk is president and chief strategy officer of Best Doctors Inc. (www.bestdoctors.com), a global health company that provides employees access to the best 5 percent of physicians for the right care and right treatment. Overseas, the service is provided in the form of insurance programs.
