When your doctor says jump, your first instinct is probably to ask how high and to immediately begin hopping around with gusto. You care about your health and probably aren’t in a position to gauge the importance of that test that your doctor recommended.
Unfortunately, all that collective jumping is causing some major turbulence in our health care system. The Institute of Medicine estimates that up to $750 billion, or 30% of health care spending in the US, is wasted on unnecessary services.
Enter Choosing Wisely® , a high-impact initiative led by the ABIM Foundation and Consumer Reports that aims to promote open dialogue between doctors and patients (for more info, check out our previous blog post on the initiative and this press release). We love this campaign and were honored to work with the National Business Coalition on Health and the Pacific Business Group on Health in creating an employer toolkit to spread the word. Why the focus on employers? Studies show that the average American gets most of her health care info from her employer, so this is the best way to reach the most people and have the greatest impact.
The free Choosing Wisely toolkit includes ready-to-send articles like Three health care treatments you may not need and Four things that would surprise you about health care. The kit also contains blog posts, tweets, timelines and tip sheets that employers can easily implement and distribute (just tweak and send!)—all geared toward a wide audience. Because smarter health care spending has a domino effect of savings through the individual, corporate, and national levels.
Jennifer Benz, SVP Communications Leader, has been on the leading edge of employee benefits for more than 20 years and is an influential voice in the employee benefits industry.
