Experts talk health care’s impact on bottom line

There's no silver bullet when it comes to controlling a business' health care costs.

That's according to the panelists at the The Gazette's Business 380 Excellence Business & Breakfast event Thursday morning in downtown Cedar Rapids.

Panelists included Dr. Tim Sagers, medical director of MercyCare Business Health Solutions; Ted Townsend, president and CEO of UnityPoint Health-St. Luke's; Mike Fay, vice president of health networks for Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield; and Ron Fuhrman, CPA, employee benefits at TrueNorth.

They spoke to a crowd of about 90 at TrueNorth, 500 First St. SE., about the fast-changing health care industry and its effects on the bottom line, including rising health care costs.

The average annual premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance is about $17,545 for family coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation - a 27 percent increase in the past five years.

'There is no one thing,” Fay said, that businesses can do to contain costs. 'We got here over time, we will have to change things over time.”

To do that, he suggested looking both inside and outside the health care system, pointing to programs such as Gov. Terry Branstad's Healthiest State initiative and the Blue Zones project.

'It's a three-pronged approach,” Sagers said. 'You have to manage health care costs, add value, and engage” with consumers and employees.

As patients are increasingly spending more of their own money on health care with high deductible plans, it's important to add value and programs, Sagers said, through more access such as telemedicine or on-site care.

'We don't have a health care system,” he added. 'We have a disease-management system, and it's terribly expensive. Healthy patients cost (a business) less money, are more productive and lead better lives.”

Developing wellness programs can be an effective part of the solution, TrueNorth's Fuhrman said, and it's important for companies to take their own culture into consideration.

'What are you trying to instill there?” he asked.

Townsend agreed, adding employers need to think about their employees and their health problems.

'What health issues can you see looking around the room? Is obesity a problem? What are those fun things and less fun things to help modify behavior?”

For example, UnityPoint Health employs about 3,600 people in Cedar Rapids, Townsend noted, and he has to work to find the right balance of 'education, carrots and sticks,” to change behavior.

'We're trying to change the long-term trend line of expense,” he said. 'What is our culture, how does it incentivize bad health care behaviors? If I don't test nicotine-free, that's a $520 cost to me.

'I'm not saying that's a perfect solution, but that's the question you have to ask yourself to make a healthy culture.”

l Comments: (319) 398-8331; chelsea.keenan@thegazette.com