Our current “disease-care” system is in crisis. Health care costs continue to climb at unprecedented rates, our country is experiencing an obesity epidemic, and people are getting sicker. This is no longer sustainable for the future health of our country.
Evidence that our system is failing us. [1]
- It’s estimated that a minimum of 80% of all healthcare dollars are spent on treatment of conditions that are preventable.
- 70% of Americans are overweight or obese.
- Childhood obesity in the US has tripled in the last 30 years: 1 out of 3 children is overweight or obese.
- 37% of our children who are not considered overweight have one or more cardiovascular risk factors.
- Nearly 50% of the American population will be obese by 2030 (American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2012).
- Current trends suggest that 1 in 3 children born after 2000 will receive a type 2 diabetes diagnosis (for Hispanic children it is 1 in 2).
[1] The Plantrician Project (read more)
How can we turn this around?
What if physicians were empowered to help us move towards disease prevention and reversal instead of using mainly drugs and procedures to treat our symptoms?
Practicing “Lifestyle Medicine” does just that.
What is Lifestyle Medicine?
Lifestyle Medicine is an evidence-based approach to prevent, treat, and even reverse diseases by replacing unhealthy behaviors with positive ones.
According to the American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM):
“Lifestyle Medicine involves the use of evidence-based lifestyle therapeutic approaches, such as a predominantly whole food, plant-based diet, regular physical activity, adequate sleep, stress management, avoidance of risky substance use, and other non-drug modalities, to prevent, treat, and, oftentimes, reverse the lifestyle-related, chronic disease that’s all too prevalent.”
How lifestyle medicine can be incorporated
You might ask – since educating patients and helping to change their behavior can’t be done within a 10-minute visit, isn’t it close to impossible for a doctor to implement lifestyle medicine in the current fee-for-service, volume-based environment?
With reimbursements low and overhead increasing, and doctors often burdened by medical school debt, many cannot sustain a primary care practice. As a result, they often seek the security of working for a hospital system. A system that, because of its economic incentives, pressures doctors to see so many patients per day they don’t have time to listen to their patients or think about or research their cases, and they are left to relegate care to mainly prescribing pills and procedures, and referring out to specialists.
Our healthcare system is unsustainable; doctors are burnt out and depressed, people are sicker and living with multiple diseases on a slew of medications, and insurance premiums are going through the roof.
We are well overdue for reform.
If we’re looking to primary care doctors to help turn around the health of our people, and improve the healthcare system using a lifestyle medicine approach, these doctors first need to be empowered with the necessary knowledge and tools. And they must find a way to have the needed time to guide their patients to health.
Some physicians are already making a difference by combining root-cause medicine with membership medicine. Those who are thinking of or currently practicing as DPC or Concierge doctors in a membership model have a perfect opportunity to blend the two.
Lifestyle medicine and Membership medicine can
make for a great marriage!
In a healthy marriage, partners share values and beliefs, and they complement and support one another. The marriage brings out the best version of each person and the partnership yields an outcome where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Likewise, the lifestyle medicine approach fits with the membership medicine model like a hand in a glove.
Lifestyle medicine requires time with patients. To teach and support, and listen and follow up. To better manage, and even reverse and prevent lifestyle-related diseases. Instead of telling patients to “eat better and exercise more”, physicians can teach, guide and support patients in actually carrying out the necessary lifestyle changes that will impact their health. A membership practice, which is much smaller by design, allows the physician more time with patients and provides the structure and financial means to support this way of practicing medicine.
Change is happening at the grass roots level – literally one doctor at a time, one practice at a time. Lifestyle medicine doctors are change agents. DPC and Concierge physicians are change agents. Combine the two approaches and you’ve got an exceptional opportunity and the tools to make successful healthcare reform happen!
Learn More
For those who are interested in learning more about lifestyle medicine, I would like to share helpful resources below.
If you’d like to speak with me about lifestyle medicine and/or membership medicine (DPC, Concierge, Hybrid models), please get in touch:
info@LatadyPS.com | 781-275-1415
Institute of Lifestyle Medicine (ILM)
“Our mission is to reduce lifestyle-related death and disease in society through clinician-directed interventions with patients.”
ILM Annual conference – May 3-4, 2019 – Boston, MA (Sold out)
I’ll have a booth at the conference, so If you’ve already signed up, let’s meet!
American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM)
“The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) is the professional medical association for physicians, medical professionals, allied health professionals and those with professional careers devoted to advancing the mission of lifestyle medicine.”
Download the What is Lifestyle Medicine patient-education infographic.
ACLM Annual conference – October 27-30, 2019 – Orlando, FL
International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention
“We are a peer reviewed, open access journal committed to the highest levels of credibility and integrity in scientific publishing, free from outside industry influence. Our mission is to create an internationally recognized journal that will become the primary repository of scientific research documenting the effects of nutrition and lifestyle to arrest and reverse chronic lifestyle-related diseases.”
Latady Physician Strategies, LLC helps physicians convert to and grow Concierge, DPC and Hybrid practice models that allow them to treat their patients the way they want to be treated, while rediscovering their enjoyment in practicing medicine.Call or email me with your questions about exploring and transitioning to Concierge or Direct Care medicine.
781.275.1415
