Focus on prevention and wellness to decrease health care costs

We know that effective prevention and health interventions save lives and dollars. Prevention and wellness programs empower individuals with critical health knowledge; remove the barriers to healthy lifestyle choices; help people take responsibility for their own health; and support the medical and business communities in their efforts to promote healthy living practices among their patients and employees. 

Numerous studies have shown the cost-saving effects of true prevention. In a 2008 report, the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) found that by investing $10 per person per year in proven community-based programs to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent smoking and other tobacco use, the country could save more than $16 billion annually within five years. That’s a return of $5.60 for every dollar spent. And in their Compendium of Proven Community-Based Prevention Programs report, the TFAH and The New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) highlight 84 evidence-based disease prevention programs that have been shown to improve health and reduce costs in communities by reducing tobacco use, increasing physical activity, and/or improving eating habits.

A study published in the September 2010 issue of Health Affairs found that increasing the use of 20 proven clinical preventive services from current levels to 90 percent in 2006 would result in total savings of $3.7 billion, or 0.2 percent of U.S. personal health care spending—while averting the loss of more than two million life-years annually. Among the clinical preventive services were smoking cessation advice and assistance, alcohol screening and brief counseling, obesity screening, and childhood immunizations.

It’s worth noting that thought leaders in the business community already grasp the concept that a focus on wellness in order to lower disease rates and severity can have a meaningful impact on a company’s bottom line.

According to the web site of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), the United States spends as much as 25 percent of its health care budget on medical care resulting from unhealthy habits and other modifiable behaviors. It goes on to say that employers and insurers are focusing more on primary care and preventive care, recognizing that high treatment costs can often be avoided by financing preventive activities. Likewise, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce educates employers on what they can do to incorporate wellness and disease management programs into their own health benefits. On its web site, the Chamber acknowledges that employers have realized the importance of focusing not only on the cost of the plan, but also the health status of employees in the plans, and that by incorporating wellness, prevention and chronic disease management into their traditional health plans, employers are quickly recognizing the results.

We have a long history in the United States of focusing our health care system on sick care rather than on wellness. A mere four percent of all health care expenditures are invested in prevention programs.

Prevention and wellness initiatives are vital to the success of any current or future health care law. The only way we can save dollars in the long haul on treating disease is if we invest the pennies needed now to prevent them. Disease prevention is a bipartisan issue. Let’s make sure we keep it that way.

Joe Moore is the president and CEO of the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association