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Prevention, wellness plays major role in future of healthcareHealthcare today is at a turning point where, in addition to the traditional responsibility of taking care of those who are already sick, healthcare professionals are being charged with providing preventive measures for those in their care. “Chronic illness and healthcare utilization continue to increase at a rate that not only puts our community health at risk, but also may jeopardize the financial sustainability of employer-based health benefit coverage in our service area,” said Toby Freier, Chief Financial Officer and Assistant Administrator at New Ulm Medical Center. As an example, Freier said, at a meeting with the leaders of about six local companies recently – each of whom have 30 to 100 employees – they all stated they had consistently seen double-digit increases in insurance premiums over each of the last several years, with most over 20 percent. “The larger companies in town may be able to absorb those kinds of increases to a certain degree, but for these smaller companies – which are the life blood of a community like New Ulm - they can’t sustain that for too many years before they just can’t offer insurance at all anymore,” Freier said. Freier and a team from NUMC are leading the charge in preventive healthcare in the area by introducing a business wellness program to area employers. “The business wellness program will provide employers with a guide and a toolkit to wellness for their employees,” explained Freier. That toolkit will include health risk assessments for all employees in participating businesses and providing resources for those at risk of chronic diseases due to existing tendencies like smoking, lack of exercise or unhealthy eating. The medical center is in the process of hiring a full time worksite wellness program specialist and in March, the NUMC Foundation funded a request for $15,000 to support the start-up of this community initiative. There are three businesses (with approximately 250 employees total) who have signed on to participate in the program thus far, with the offer of participation in the program extended to each one of their spouses. Freier said the goal of the program is to have 400 to 500 participants within the next few months spanning across four to six companies. One of the first three businesses to participate in the program is Windings. “We began doing some research last year when we were trying to determine why we continued to see a 20 percent hike in insurance costs each year,” said Scott Ward, Vice President and Chief Strategic Officer of Windings. “Even though our total cost is still below average, we can’t continue to take on 20 percent hikes each year. Our insurance broker had even encouraged us to start offering some wellness education to our employees so when the medical center offered this program, it just really worked out well.” Windings had, in fact, done some “mini-educational” pieces over the past year, Ward said, concerning diet and exercise, good sleep and some of the basic habits that can be changed to help reduce the risk of some chronic illnesses. “Some of our employees have already started making some positive changes,” Ward said. “As we get older, we may not be able to completely ward off all those chronic illnesses like heart disease and cancer but we want to encourage our employees to do things to maintain good health longer so they maybe don’t have heart problems for 10 or more years later than they would have had.” Prevention and wellness is the key, Freier agrees. Not only are employers starting to feel the importance of prevention and wellness but insurance companies are beginning to offering some financial incentives to members to encourage them to take up the charge. “We are asking insurance companies to provide more payment for prevention and wellness in addition to payment for care,” Freier explained. Prevention and wellness is definitely an important trend of the future, Freier said, and NUMC is looking at many different ways to provide preventive steps for their patient population, such as using the electronic medical record to send reminders to patients for important screening tests like mammograms. “This business wellness program is only the tip of the iceberg,” Freier said.  Back to About Us |
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New Ulm Medical Center
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