Health Engineering Group

Core Strategy: Reduce Healthcare Costs and Improve Employee Productivity ? 4Healing is a Corporate/Individual Benefits Program which, in addition to your normal health coverage, helps self-insured companies, individuals, and third party payers to help their employees/customers find optimal treatments based on science.  Results in Denver have proven to substantially reduce healthcare costs, reduce absenteeism, and improve outcomes for 4Healing members. 

Better Outcomes, Far Less Money - Rigorous outcomes tracking over a full year have demonstrated that for every $100,000 spent through 4Healing, payers save at least $1 million that they would have spent without 4Healing. 4Healing is only interested in successful outcomes for patients.  We are not aligned with any modality or special interest group.  We have no bias toward one methodology over another.  We are only interested in tracking what works and getting that information to the people who need it.  4Healing helps its members achieve successful health outcomes by utilizing the science of medicine rather than the business of medicine. See the Critical Need page.

Outsourcing the Healthcare ?Henhouse? to the ?Foxes? ? Companies outsource perhaps their largest, most uncontrollable expense (employee healthcare) to insurance carriers acting as Third Party Administrators (TPA).  These companies impose outdated restrictions ignore the science of medicine.  These practices and restrictions actually impede patient health progress and significantly drive up costs.  see short video  Critically, insurers disallow far less expensive, scientifically validated therapies that have better outcomes in favor of expensive often ineffective procedures that worsen patient lives and cost employers (see below).

The ?Discount? Fallacy: Fiscal intermediaries negotiate with physician groups to discount their fees 40%-60% off ?usual and customary fees? (U&C) that are passed on to customers. Employers are led to believe that they will save money from the discounts. However, it is the fiscal intermediary?s rules for practitioner payment that drive up costs and prevent successful outcomes. Current government and fiscal intermediary payment rules thwart success and prevent successful outcomes.

The current healthcare system systematically prevents successful health outcomes, market forces, and optimal treatment:1  The business of medicine is largely controlled by government and conventional fiscal intermediaries (Blue Cross, Aetna, UnitedHealth, Oxford, etc).  Private insurers tend to pay the way the government pays and providers who break Medicare rules in order to better serve the patient risk being barred from the entire Medicare program.  Medicare and Medicaid ignore outcomes, stifle entrepreneurial activity and financially punish efforts to lower costs or improve quality. 

There is no systematic reward for excellence and no penalty for mediocrity. Indeed, ?a doctor who botches a surgical procedure, diagnostic test or drug prescription and then has to follow up with corrective action actually profits from his mistake. He gets paid for the botch-up and then again for mitigating the mistake.2  Where conventional fiscal intermediary payment is the norm, markets tend to be bureaucratic and stifling. But in those health-care sectors where fiscal intermediary payment is rare or nonexistent, the market is vibrant, entrepreneurial and competitive e.g.  Despite tremendous growth and technological change, the real price of cosmetic surgery declined. Over the past decade the real price of Lasik surgery fell by 30%.

Getting more medical care in "prestige high cost clinics, hospitals and areas" like NY, and paying more for it, can actually make your health worse. If anything, it looks like there is a substantially increased risk of death if cared for in high-cost systems ( Like New York),. The additional tests and procedures in the high-cost areas bring more risks than benefits. Bus.Week  Read Article

Top Global Business Leaders (GE, GM, Wal-Mart, Shering-Plough, Royal Philips CEOs) Know What is Needed ( 4Healing rigorous outcomes tracking) ? ?Linking reimbursements to outcomes will de-facto lower costs.? ? Jeff Immelt GE Chairman and CEO  see short video  4Healing is the only firm which links reimbursements to successful outcomes.  An employee who gets back surgery for back pain, for example, may get a technically brilliant surgery.  Usually, however, the data show that the surgery does not relieve the back pain!