How to make a business case for lifestyle medicine

Key takeaways:

• A lifestyle medicine business plan will be successful if it is timebound, specific and aligned with the organization’s goals.
• Make the case that lifestyle medicine can reverse costs and improve patient health.

DENVER — The lifestyle medicine model makes good business sense, but a business plan is needed to make it a logical decision for your organization, a speaker said here.

“If we can undo what is going on in our system, we can save money. We can do it better. We can provide some cost-effective care,” said Lisa Mauch, MBA, DipACLM, program director of the lifestyle medicine department at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California. “Health care organizations have built a business model based upon short-term goals … Existing systems have interdependent processes that are challenging to change.”

Mauch, who said she has been practicing lifestyle medicine before she even had a name for what she was doing, laid out clear steps on how to create a lifestyle medicine business plan.

“This takes time,” Mauch emphasized to the audience. “In order to influence the system that is so tightly interconnected … you are going to have to come at this with small tests of change with a small ask, demonstrate success, and then … sequentially influence change.”

When she asked the audience about the barriers to lifestyle medicine programs and interventions, the audience shared these: bureaucracy, time, stakeholders (competing priorities), lack of insurers, skepticism and organizational structure.

Before creating the business plan, Mauch suggested doing advance research, including identifying and speaking to stakeholders. In conversations with stakeholders, have them identify pain points and see if your solution can be “part of an existing system.” She suggested looking to see if there are potential partners in cardiac rehabilitation, type 2 diabetes care, cancer care or the prevention of diabetes or other diseases.

Then, bring together a think tank, uncover overlapping priorities and “position lifestyle medicine as a solution,” she said. However, Mauch emphasized not to leave the meeting without framing the solution and committing to collaborative goals. She also gave some practical advice: make the meeting no less than 2 hours, know that it can take 2 to 3 months to actually schedule the meeting, and present it as “you are invited to the table to do some critical thinking and innovative planning.”

Often, there will be an enthusiastic response and contagious energy.

“The sweet spot is … if we can provide standard-setting care, we can improve the health of patients we are serving and reduce cost … everyone wins,” she said.

When creating a business plan, make your pitch concise, be confident, be specific, justify the ask and guide them to a place of a logical decision, Mauch said. Make sure you emphasize “what’s different with this” and include measurable outcomes.

Within your cost analysis, include the current cost of care (by looking at the literature); the potential cost savings; any potential cost avoidance; the proposed cost of the intervention; and the return on investment, Mauch said.

And what is the opportunity? Improve patient health; provide cost-effective care; earn patient loyalty; offer provider fulfillment; and set the organization up for the future.

“We can reverse the cost of care while we are reversing disease,” Mauch said. “Being strategic is equally as important as being tenacious.”

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American College of Lifestyle Medicine