Ivy Hartman: A major illness can be a critical crisis for a small business owner but there are some steps that you can take to reduce your chance or your risk of medical bankruptcy. And our guest today is Dr. Jason Deitch and Dr. Bob Hoffman; our co-authors of the best selling book “Discover Wellness: How Staying Healthy Can Make You Rich.” And today we’re going to talk a little bit about; well first of all, thank you for joining us on sbtv.com.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: Thank you.
Dr. Jason Deitch: Thanks for having us.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: Thanks for having us.
Ivy Hartman: Absolutely. Give us some insight on what are the most overlooked health conditions that can lead to short and long term disabilities.
Dr. Jason Deitch: I think one of the most important things for people to realize is that over 50% of personal bankruptcies today are related to medical death and over 70% of the treatment or care that’s necessary, the cost that re-lead to this bankruptcies are related to lifestyle, preventable conditions like you asked about. Conditions like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and stress related conditions and much more. The key opportunity, the critical and important thing for people to realize is that by definition, these are lifestyle preventable conditions and then the book, we talked about how people can in fact reduce their risk of this conditions.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: Interesting enough in the book, we document these seven conditions that are bankrupting America, Americans and small business. One of which is adverse drug effects and why I point that out is because 70% of all of our costs and health care are related to lifestyle conditions, 25% is related to the drug effects, the side effects, the adverse reactions that people have. You know, they are millions of people that are sent to hospitals because of that. About a 140,000 die every year that’s document able, so the system has failed and that’s really the major point and when you have employees that are failing in that system, it’s devastating to the business.
It’s expensive to the business, it disrupts the business and there are clearly steps that you could take. Also in the book, we talk about the seven steps that anyone could take that within 90 days could radically improve your health and level of well being and that’s the message more important. It’s not about focusing on the negativity but focusing on the solution and any business, any individual can get healthier if they do certain things and some of them are pretty obvious, you know, it’s eating better, it’s exercising. But we believe the best kept secret in this whole wellness equation is something we call alignment and it’s aligning your values with your actions as an individual and as a company. But also aligning your posture and your nervous system and as I’m practicing chiropractics a doctor of chiropractic, that is obviously been our niche but the fact is, is that we search clearly documents that every organ in your body is connected to a nerve that exists. Your spine and when your spine is out of its normal position or out of its normal alignment, it absolutely plays havoc with your health. And it’s an area that most people have overlooked and there are simple answers and simple solutions to these problems.
Ivy Hartman: So reducing our risk can just by promoting a welfare lifestyle, reducing our risk of bankruptcy that is, as an individual but also as a small business. So as a small business owner, in order to reduce my risk of medical bankruptcy, I need to implement a wellness program.
Dr. Jason Deitch: These days, we know that health care cost are often times rising at faster rates than profits and so it’s critical for small businesses especially if you don’t have the ability to absorb quarterly loses the way larger corporations might. It’s critical for small businesses to realize how important it is for them than to actually promote their own employees well being because it’s ultimately up to their physical responsibility to make sure they do so.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: You know, I just read a report just yesterday that showed that in the last five years, health care cost across the board have risen by 60%.Now a lot of businesses can’t handle that. It’s bankrupting businesses and it’s going to get worse not better unless the system changes. You know you can’t do more of something that’s inappropriate and expected to become appropriate.
Ivy Hartman: Right.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: There has got to be a different model and what we advocate, what we write about in the book is creating a wellness mode. It’s creating a culture of wellness, consciousness of wellness and action steps of wellness and it’s up to each employer and up to each individual employee, how far they want to take that.
Ivy Hartman: Okay.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: You know sometimes, sometimes Ivy, it could be something as simple as teaching people to talk a walk for 20-minutes after dinner every night. In others, it’s about changing their diet radically. In others, it’s beginning an exercise program or working with someone who stresses management. You know, it just depends on how far you want to take it but the simplest change can cost the most radical and profound improvement.
Ivy Hartman: I’m sure you guys, in your experience, have some statistics or examples of how soon a small business owner can expect return on their investment in a wellness program.
Dr. Jason Deitch: We have lots of research on our website at discoverwellnesscenter.com and again, it’s most important that a business owner should realize what they can do because depending on what they do of course, to determine how, what type of return out investment they get, how quickly. So there is no one answer to that because there is no really one size fits all wellness program. We help as doctors. We help small businesses understand how to prescribe what the best program is for their business to get the best results and help them reach their goals.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: We custom teller program based on their individual needs but people are shocked when they learn for example, talking about the cost that a company like Starbucks, spends more money on health care than they do on coffee and general motors spends more money on health care than they do on steel and it’s because the cost of health care has just sky rocketed out of control and unless we find the better answer in a better system, in a better model to follow, it’s going to bankrupt a lot of companies; small and large and are approach or whole reason for writing the book, is to try to help people, help companies, help employees and employers fix the system because it’s very easy to fix.
Ivy Hartman: Not only avoid the risk of medical bankruptcy but also maybe attract some potential hardball players and great employees also to your company, by not only offering heath insurance but at this point offering a great wellness program and being proactive on that, right?
Dr. Jason Deitch: It has been documented that the companies that are tract to the best employees are the companies that provide the best benefits and benefits traditionally have been the best health insurance but the fact is that primarily focuses on after the fact. These days and the trend for the future are the companies that offer employees the best opportunities for growth, development, a well balanced family life and a healthy individual well being in state of well being in their life are the ones that are tracking the best employees. The side effects are tremendous.
Dr. Bob Hoffman: And just to give you just one simple example and there are dozens of these, instead of giving your employee sick days to reward them for being sick, why not give them well days? That if they come to work and work at a high level for certain number of days in a row, they’ve earned the day work with full pay. Reward the behavior you want. It sounds so simple but it’s so substantial in changing the culture and the consciousness of a business.
Ivy Hartman: I think that’s wonderful because you’ve always got those employees who never use their sick day.
Dr. Jason Deitch: That’s right.
Ivy Hartman: That’s a great inside and out. Thank you gentlemen’s for being here; Dr’s Bob Hoffman and Dr. Jason Deitch, co authors of “Discover Wellness: How Staying Healthy Can Make You Rich,” for being here on sbtv.com where small business is our only business.
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