Business Interest Grows In Employee Wellness And Consumers’ Health Choices
Media outlets report on how corporations are mindful of "healthy" opportunities. Meanwhile, WellPoint announces that it will begin covering lung CT scans for heavy smokers.
NPR: Businesses Pledge 'Healthier Choices' For Customers
Corporate America is jumping on the opportunities to make people healthier, while keep their bottoms line strong. Leaders of Supermarkets, hotel chains and restaurant groups gathered in Washington this week for a summit aimed at shaping private sector solutions to the obesity epidemic (Aubrey, 12/2).
Fox News: Corporate Competitions Offer Employees Incentives To Lose Weight, Gain Cash
In an effort to reduce health care costs, a growing number of companies are offering cash to overweight workers who lose weight. "People really get into competing and winning," says David Roddenberry of Healthy Wage; "whether there's a huge prize attached or a little prize." Roddenberry started Healthy Wage three years ago hoping to make money while helping people shed unhealthy pounds. He acts as sort of a weight-loss bookie, setting up corporate competitions and letting individuals bet on themselves to lose weight. Put up $100 and if you lose 10 percent of your weight, you double your money. If you fall short, your money goes to paying someone else’s winnings (Springer, 12/1).
The Wall Street Journal: WellPoint To Cover Lung CT Scans For Heavy Smokers
This summer, the New England Journal of Medicine published the results of a government-funded trial that found screening current and former heavy smokers with low-dose CT scans was tied to a 20 percent reduction in lung-cancer deaths. Now, the study is starting to have a concrete impact: insurer WellPoint, with around 34 million members, says it will start covering the tests based on its findings (Mathews, 12/1).
And, in other marketplace news, NPR takes a look at physicians' referral patterns -
NPR's SHOTS blog: MRIs More Likely To Be Negative When The Doctor Profits
Doctors who have a financial interest in the imaging equipment are more likely to send patients for scans when they don't have anything wrong with them. That's the conclusion of a researcher who combed through hundreds of patient records to examine MRI referral patterns. Watchdogs have been warning about doctors sending patients for unnecessary scans for a long time (Shute, 12/1).