A New Approach for Lifestyle Medicine Payment

Abstract

With more than 85% of health care costs attributable to chronic health conditions, an emphasis on treating the underlying causes of these conditions is imperative. Lifestyle medicine offers treatments that can reverse a wide range of chronic health conditions at minimal cost and without negative side effects. Although one might expect its use to be widespread among health care professionals, it is far from common in everyday practice. A significant contributing factor is the lack of financial incentives for health care providers who practice lifestyle medicine. Current practitioners generally do not receive remuneration consistent with the cost savings resulting from reversing chronic health conditions using lifestyle medicine. The Actuarial Patient Value model offers a new approach to encourage the practice of lifestyle medicine through the use of cash financial incentives based on actual patient health outcomes. This model aligns the incentives of the 3 primary stakeholders in the health care system by offering providers increased compensation, giving patients the opportunity to learn about and achieve optimal health, and reducing costs for health care payers.