A Pill for Every Ill?

The Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit academic medical center that is routinely regarded as one of the finest hospitals in America. According to Judy Berger writing in Deseret News National, they have the courage to try new approaches to curing diseases and not just soothing symptoms — even if these programs reduce hospital admissions and revenue.

 

The Cleveland Clinic is stressing the concept of “functional medicine” to identify and eradicate certain chronic diseases through a holistic approach. This Center for Functional Medicine recently opened with a staff of four doctors, a nutritionist, a health coach, and a specific mission to reduce angioplasties and bypasses.

 

The keys — a team approach and a belief that food is medicine. This process requires accountability from the patient and a slower timeline than prescriptions or surgery.

 

Dr. Mark Hyman, a cardiac surgeon and head of this center described the protocols when a high blood pressure/high cholesterol patient presents with troubling heart concerns. “We want to create (better) function in a body by restoring balance. When the body can balance itself, symptoms disappear and medications become unnecessary. To get there, the team will create a plan that could include some combination of healthy foods, exercise and sleep while removing junk foods, stress, alcohol, tobacco and anything else that tends to throw a body out of balance.”

 

Those of us that practice in the workers’ comp arena know that claimants routinely demand a pill for every ill, and a procedure for every symptom. Are your physician advisors and nurse case managers trying to restore function, or do they just respond to symptoms?

 

Call us. We can do better.

William Faris, JD
Chief Executive Officer
502-495-5040
william.faris@omca.biz
www.omca.biz

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