Authentic Wellness in Healthcare

True to one's own personality, spirit, or character.

Looking for a more authentic approach to healthcare?

 

Looks like wellness is now sexy in the insurance industry. It’s as though insurance companies and brokers have always known and cared for the well-being of their policy holders. 

But, the reality is that health insurance has been at best passive and mostly denying people’s access to preventive measures until forced to change by legislation and public outcry. For years policies specifically restricted wellness care, bypassing far less expensive care with excellent long term results. It is being acknowledged now that up to 80% of dollars spent emanated from lifestyle growing into chronic concerns. So now the carriers are the wellness heroes, but many of the people who sell and service insurance products are still untrained in health, education and economics. They are still selling “products” with the addition of a new “cost item” tacked on conventional health insurance, resulting in a new profit center for their firms.

But, as though a bolt of insight came down from the sky, wellness appears to always have been a part of healthcare including no-cost preventive benefits. Now everyone can have a pedometer, walk 10,000 steps and discounts to purchase weight controlling foods. We now can reward “good” behavior and penalize the “bad.” As long as wellness follows these mechanistic formulas and is dependent on short sighted, short lived results, we will have escalating costs with rampant ill health.

 

 

Authentic wellness, and I struggle to use the word, should be the foundation of a health program that is dynamic and caring –  not an add on with new costs, but the lead in a new/ancient way of thinking that knows we change from a deep well inside that is well. This means we cannot keep seeing people as commodities and consumers of health, but as sacred and complex beings longing to be well.

We believe that it is long overdue for a model of healthcare that is based on whole person thinking, being there to guide and offer tools, resources and care for the on-going journey toward walking a life of balance. This means learning is at the core, not claims or blame, and it means supporting people to be partners not victims in their life. Costs go down when people are actually engaged in their well-being. This has been proven over and over at the firms who have taken ownership of their health programs, using smart financing based on lifestyle management, bringing in the aspects of our life that contribute to our successful navigation.

Sophus Health was founded on these ideas and together with our clients works to bring smart health programs to employees and their families – with real wellness as an integral part not an add on.

We welcome your thoughts and feedback on the state of health and wellness.