Managing Risks: Curling Irons to Cancer Screenings

This episode explores the intricate connection between risk and cost in healthcare, emphasizing how managing risks can lead to significant long-term savings. Through relatable anecdotes and thorough analysis, we highlight the impact of preventative care and the costs associated with neglecting health screenings. 

• Discusses the relationship between risk and cost in healthcare 
• Uses an analogy involving a curling iron to explain risks 
• Differentiates between controllable and uncontrollable health risks 
• Examines alarming compliance data regarding preventative screenings 
• Highlights the consequences of late cancer diagnoses 
• Analyzes the financial implications associated with stage one and stage four treatments 
• Explores the broader workforce impact of employee health 
• Stresses the importance of intentional health risk management 
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Music by Alex Lambert.

Contact Justin via text 740-525-5259 or via email JFutrell@TrueNorthCompanies.com

I welcome the opportunity to hear your feedback from this episode!

Thanks again to my musically gifted friend Alex Lambert for the music. Also thanks to Kevin Asehan for the edits.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome to another Tuesday morning with Justin. I'm Justin Futrell, benefit Advisor at True North Companies. Today I want to talk about risk reduction and how that translates to cost. Okay, I'm going to throw something at you here. Risk doesn't equal cost, but you never have cost without risk. Okay, let's dive into that. What does that look like? Let me help by giving you an analogy.

Speaker 1: 0:55

I came home the other day and my wife I will love her to death left her curling iron plugged in on the bathroom counter next to a box of tissues. There was a major risk and it could have started a fire, but thankfully there was no fire and no cost. There's always the risk of a fire. It could be a controllable risk or an uncontrollable risk. Call it weather a storm. But if it's controllable, then it can either be prevented my wife could chop her hair off, so there's nothing to curl or it can be controllable. Whether that's putting layers in place, like the Swiss cheese model of first unplug it. Have a fire extinguisher just in case, there's really no difference when you think about health care.

Speaker 1: 1:50

Now let's give an example and see if the two dots connect. Let's think about something tragic like colon cancer. What's uncontrollable is the genetic disposition of someone getting colon cancer. What is controllable is ensuring that that person is getting their preventative checkups as they should be, in compliance with per the recommendations of doctors. Now, this example I'm bringing up because we recently reviewed some data and it was pretty gut-wrenching, if I'm being completely honest with you, and there were 146 adults who were non-compliant with their preventative screenings. What we can measure and manage is how low can we get that number through education and incentives for people to take care of themselves with their preventative screenings, like what success looks like. If we could cut that number in half, down to 75 people who are non-compliant, that would be awesome.

Speaker 1: 3:04

But let's look at what actually happened, and what actually happened is, unfortunately, an employee went well overdue and was in stage four of colon cancer. So, before we look into stage four, what is stage one? Look like stage one colon cancer probably costs around $40,000 to have a surgery and we're able to successfully remove that part of the colon. That is the problem. Now, if you catch it in stage four for the first time and it's metastasized, then what does that look like? Well, now we're talking chemo, radiation, multiple surgeries and probably expensive on top of that, reduction of risk.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Going back to what we originally said, risk doesn't have a direct relationship with cost, but you never have costs without risk. If we reduce the risk, are we reducing our cost tomorrow? Maybe not. Are we reducing our cost five years, eight years down the road? Certainly, especially when you start to think about the bigger picture. What does it look like if an employee suddenly has absenteeism and can't come to work because of trying to fight cancer? And then what are the HR recruiting costs? What are the training costs for that new employee? It's so important to be very intentionable intentionable, intentional about how we are reducing risk within a health plan at a company.