Hello, and welcome to NBS Healthcare Group!
On one of my first days as medical director for a previous employer, I was handed a recently completed report, purporting to show that on-site medical services returned value to the company. My boss had commissioned the report to have at the ready, should leadership question the necessity for site-based healthcare. He retained a highly respected consulting group for the purpose of demonstrating the value of our clinic. The report did exactly that. It concluded that we saved the company substantially, through avoiding community-based healthcare expenses and by improving productivity. Everybody was happy, except for me. The research and findings were pure bullshit.
My boss had committed the fundamental sin of starting with the answer he wanted and working backwards. The consultants were only too pleased to take his money and provide him with exactly that. They baked incorrect assumptions into the model and grabbed low quality data to support the position. When I did my own analysis, there were at least 2 major flaws:
1. The claim of improved productivity was bogus. It was based on an article published in a nursing journal and was entirely empiric, stating that employees leaving work for medical care lost 2 hours of productivity for each visit. In fact, the opposite was true. Workers would sleep late and arrive on campus just in time for their appointment. On the other end, workers seen in the afternoon seldom went back to work.
2. The cost avoidance conclusion was similarly flawed. We were providing medical care for free. There were no insurance deductibles or copays. Because care was convenient and at no cost, many employees used the service for subclinical or self-limited illnesses (such as viral infections, and minor musculoskeletal symptoms). If we hadn’t been available, they would not have gone to their personal physician. Rather, they would have used symptomatic relief until they felt better.
In reality, many corporate healthcare consulting companies take this exact approach. Give the client what they ask for, regardless of its legitimacy. NBS Healthcare Group (NBS) was created to provide honest, expert consulting services, that solve legitimate problems. Our target clientele is companies that sincerely believe in the value of employee well-being, and whose leaders are willing to invest in the health of their population. It is this level of integrity that sets us apart. We will not contract with any client who does not fully commit to this commitment.
Clients may consider NBS to be a project-focused medical directorship. Our scope of services includes all areas that are traditionally covered by a corporate medicine expert. These include:
· Occupational and Environmental Health
· U.S. and Global Health Benefits
· Employer-sponsored clinical services
· Event, Disaster and Pandemic Planning and Response
· Global Travel and Expatriate Health
· Executive Health Services
· Wellness, Primary and Secondary Prevention Programming, Including Mental Health
Prospective clients will be considered for suitability for NBS consulting services. If appropriate, preliminary work will create a detailed project charter. Relevant experts from the NBS consultant pool will be selected and invited to participate. Consultants will always have the right to decline to participate in any given project, regardless of reason. Once the team has been assembled, a formal quote will be presented to the client. Upon acceptance and contracting, the team will begin the work. The process is represented here:
If you are an employer, healthcare system, or 3rd party healthcare provider, interested in making real and substantial changes in the health of your (or your client’s) population, please consider NBS Healthcare Group for the expertise you need. For more information, contact Rob@NBSHealth.org. And, keep an eye on this blog for news, notes and monographs that may be of interest to your organization.
With warm regards,
Rob