Dr. Conard in Midst of Innovative Affordability and Quality Health Push

A national leader in disease prevention, sought public speaker, and author, Dr. Scott Conard is highly critical of the health care system in America today. Affordability is one of many issues that Dr. Conard has been tackling in the health care industry for more than two decades. On his Game of Health web site, he says: “I worry that we are mortgaging our future with an impractical, frustratingly antiquated, and expensive health care system.”

In 2011, Dr. Conard became chief medical officer of the ACAP Health Consulting division of the insurance brokerage firm Holmes Murphy & Associates. The affordability of health care was a contributing factor to Dr. Conard’s leap into this new realm of the health care field.

When Dr. Conard assumed the new role, ACAP was moving into a new business philosophy. Instead of being a clinically-based wellness and cost management insurance organization, it was transitioning into a value-based health asset management and clinical care engineering leader. One of the top priorities of that change was a concern about affordability.

The importance of affordability was highlighted at the end of a recent promotional piece released by ACAP Health: “The enemy is not insurance companies, hospital systems, or even the government. Make no mistake – the real enemy here is disease.” At the conclusion of ACAP Health’s statement, it was noted the health agency’s new role was to “connect at-risk patients with the health care providers and programs that give them the best chance to get better” with care affordability being a significant piece of the formula.

With affordability for clients as an ongoing concern, ACAP Health listed four programs they are proud of:

• Metabolic syndrome reduction program

• Clinical stress reduction program

• Price transparency and advocacy program

• Clinical care engineering program

Because of Dr. Conard’s short term relationship with ACAP Health Consulting, it would be logical to assume that his emphasis on affordability has not yet infiltrated these programs, but even so they fit nicely with his overall health philosophy that everyone can lead healthier and happier lives.

For instance, Dr. Conard is board certified in the area of bariatric medicine (weight loss medicine), and those who implement the affordability of the metabolic syndrome reduction program will be guaranteed sustained weight loss through a non-diet approach based on behavioral changes.

In addition, within the clinical stress reduction program, ACAP Health offers education, online support, and coaching services to nix complex emotional and physiological type of stress.

Affordability is at the heart of the price transparency and advocacy program. With extreme cost variations between one health care provider and the next, ACAP Health chooses to share the most updated prices with its patients.

Affordability is also in the forefront of ACAP Health thinking with its clinical care engineering program where connectivity is stressed between purchasers of health care and providers of health care services.