In most any business proposition, the idea how to get more for less is always one that's right in the front of a user's mind, and in healthcare, that's no exception. Reducing costs and getting better out of healthcare is of key importance in businesses' minds, and so employers turned to the American Health Strategy Project (AHSP) in a bid to not only find the ways to get better health, but to do so at lower costs.
The AHSP brought together five separate business health coalitions—including the Oregon Coalition of Health Care Purchasers and the Midwest Business Group on Health in Chicago, along with Pfizer—to focus on getting better health to employees but to do so at a lower cost, which meant several specific points were raised as part of the AHSP. There was reportedly a special focus on prevention methods as well as wellness, managing healthcare costs, and getting the most out of health benefits currently offered. Four of the five groups involved in the AHSP formed the basis for the Partnership for Prevention's report “Creating a Corporate Health Strategy: The American Health Strategy Project Early Adopter Experience.”
Several of the businesses launched a set of strategies geared toward bringing down healthcare costs, including an incentive program for getting into activities like health risk assessments, offering coverage for preventative screenings that have some evidence involved, changing various factors of the business environment to promote health, and several others besides. These strategies, in turn, can offer means for businesses currently operating to engage in such programs as well.
The vice president of the National Business Coalition on Health (NBCH), Sara Hanlon, offered some commentary on the recent effort, saying “Through the AHSP pilots, employers recognized the value of tailoring benefits to the health risks of their employee population and became savvier decision makers as they were more strategically-invested. Businesses nationwide can benefit from these pilots by adopting similar models to make better, more informed benefit decisions for their workforce.”
That seems to be the major thrust of the AHSP's effort, specifically, a means to provide other businesses—and not just business health coalitions—with the necessary tools to build healthcare packages and plans that allow for more preventative measures and less urgent care. The old saw about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure is alive and well when it comes to healthcare issues, and here, the AHSP looks to be putting a particular focus on getting those ounces of prevention more into businesses' hands. With the coalitions that comprise the NBCH located pretty much everywhere in the United States—as noted previously, Chicago and Oregon are covered, as are the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Pittsburgh and Virginia—the various members should have a handle sufficient on the various regional idiosyncrasies making up business today, and allowing each business to better build a solution based on said regional issues.
Basically, improving overall health today means a reduced need for healthcare in the future. With a lower need for healthcare, prices can drop accordingly, and better value can be achieved therein. Only time will tell just how well it all works, but the picture as presented should be a major help overall when it comes to setting up and operating healthcare plans.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
