Track Your Plaque reduces healthcare costs 35%

29. May 2010 William Davis (12)
Allow me to wear my Track Your Plaque hat for this post.

Mr. Richard Rawle is CEO of Utah company, Tosh, Inc. Mr. Rawle has been an avid follower of the Track Your Plaque program and has introduced the program to company employees. Here's what he has to say about the experience:

“Our company has been utilizing the principles of TYP [Track Your Plaque] for over a year and has experienced great results that have positively impacted the lives of our employees and our health care costs.

Since we began our wellness program, we have presented the TYP diet and lifestyle guidelines to all of our employees and their families. Although the overwhelming majority of our employees do not have cardiovascular issues, the preventative nature of TYP is too important not to be utilized. The TYP principles along with our increased focus on healthy living have already changed our group’s blood chemistry. HDL levels in particular have increased significantly and resulted in a large percentage of our employees having HDL levels of 60 or higher. Vitamin D levels have substantially increased and LDL levels have significantly decreased in the majority of our employees. Subsequently, in the 12 months just ended, our health care costs are some 35% less than other groups of comparable size and age.

I believe the TYP program has been an integral part of the success of our company's vast improvement in employee health/wellness, resulting in significant health care cost reductions."

Richard Rawle
CEO Tosh Inc.

Track Your Plaque saves lives. Track Your Plaque also saves money . . . lots of it. Despite the upfront costs of some additional blood testing and a heart scan, the dramatic reduction in need for medications, reduced heart attack, diabetes, and many other chronic conditions add up to a huge cost savings, much as Tosh, Inc. employees have enjoyed.

The Federal government has been looking towards large hospital systems to lead the way in healthcare delivery, systems that employ their physicians and possess economies of scale. But I say the answer to reducing healthcare costs will NEVER be found in hospital systems. Healthcare cost savings will be realized by delivering truly effective health solutions directly to people themselves, much as we do in Track Your Plaque.
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Comments (12) -

  • Jim Purdy

    5/29/2010 1:14:10 PM |

    QUOTE --
    "Healthcare cost savings will be realized by delivering truly effective health solutions directly to people themselves"

    Very true. Empowering the individual is powerful.

  • Anonymous

    5/30/2010 12:04:34 AM |

    Congratulations to you, Dr Davis!

  • Anonymous

    6/1/2010 3:21:20 AM |

    I just had my first heart scan done this week for $99 at a local hospital. I've been following a low-carb eating plan for several years. My score was 0 in three of my arteries and 18.38 in the left circumflex. Since this is my first scan, I don't know how it compares to before I began eating low-carb, but I'd like to think this is not a bad starting score and probably better than it would have been back when I was eating that "healthy" diet that is slowly killing so many. I will have another scan in a year, and see if I can tweak the diet a little to eliminate the small build-up I have. I am very motivated to avoid the prescription-drug, expensive procedure path that so many take as they age.

  • Cheers to empowerment!

    6/9/2010 8:16:28 AM |

    Wow Brilliant blog Dr. Davis i stumbled on it 3 days back and took time off from work and went through all your articles from april 2006 till now in 3 x 16 hour shifts. Stupendous stupendous work. By the way im a 25 year old attorney. I lost my father and grandfather to inexplicable health issues and your blog has lifted the veil on the cause - low fat high carb and high sugar diet, nutritional deficiencies especially k2 us being strict vegetarians. My mom is showing arthritic symptoms very young in her early 50s. For my parents (being high up in the government) there is no medical facility or procedure out of reach, but curative medicine is a huge drag when prevention is possible. Being bed ridden for years is hugely taxing on nuclear families whatever be the status or financial pull of a person. I Being the only child of my parents and having gone through all the trauma of attending law school caring for my father and moving houses simultaneously, your blog is endlessly empowering and valuable.

  • Indian Surgical Industries

    7/19/2010 8:12:26 AM |

    Best surgical instruments medical supply in all India- Delhi based surgical medical manufacturer and suppliers company provide all kinds of medical equipment on wholesale like Sterilization Equipment, hospital furniture, suction unit, baby care products and many more.

  • Resume Writing Service

    7/24/2010 12:27:27 PM |

    Nice discussion very informative.

  • Indian Surgical Industries

    8/12/2010 11:40:56 AM |

    Best surgical instruments medical supply in all India- Delhi based surgical medical manufacturer and suppliers company provide all kinds of medical equipment on wholesale like Sterilization Equipment, hospital furniture, suction unit, baby care products and many more.

  • mike V

    10/4/2010 2:31:47 PM |

    FYI:
    Radiology, November 2010
    CT Scans and Cardiovascular Health

    http://www.ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?&storyid=25336

    Mike V

  • Physician in India

    10/19/2010 9:30:12 AM |

    Thanks for sharing the informative post.

  • Savion

    7/10/2011 8:42:01 AM |

    Super jazzed about gteting that know-how.

  • Dilly

    7/11/2011 7:11:56 PM |

    You know what, I'm very much inlcnied to agree.

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My life is easy

My life is easy

17. February 2007 William Davis (3)
In the old days (the 1980s and 1990s), practicing cardiology was very physically and emotionally demanding. Since procedures dominated the practice and preventive strategies were limited, heart attacks were painfully common. It wasn't unusual to have to go to the hospital for a patient having a heart attack at 3 am several times a week.

Those were the old days. Nowadays, my life is easy. Heart attacks, for the most part, are a thing of the past in the group of people who follow the Track Your Plaque principles. I can't remember the last time I had a coronary emergency for someone following the program.

But I am reminded of what life used to be like for me when I occasionally have to live up to my hospital responsibilities and/or cover the practices of my colleagues. (Though I voice my views on prevention to my colleagues, the most I get is a odd look. When a colleague recently covered my practice for a weekend while I visited family out of town, he commented to me how quiet my practice was. I responded, "That's because my patients are essentially cured." "Oh, sure they are." He laughed. No registration that he had witnessed something that was genuine and different from his experience of day-to-day catastrophe among his own patients. None.)

I recently had to provide coverage for a colleague for a week while he took his family to Florida. During the 7 days, his patients experienced 4 heart attacks. That is, 4 heart attacks among patients under the care of a cardiologist.

If you want some proof of the power of prevention, watch your results and compare them to the "control" group of people around you: neighbors, colleagues, etc. Unfortunately, the word on prevention, particularly one as powerful as Track Your Plaque, is simply not as widespread as it should be. Instead, it's drowned out in the relentless flood of hospital marketing for glitzy hospital heart programs, the "ask your doctor about" ads for drugs like Plavix, which is little better than spit in preventing heart attacks (except in stented patients), and the media's fascinating with high-tech laser, transplant, robotic surgery, etc.

Prevention? That's not news. But it sure can make the slow but sure difference between life and death, having a heart attack or never having a heart attack.
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Comments (3) -

  • Jeff

    2/19/2007 11:23:00 PM |

    Dr. Davis, I'd like to invite you to visit ad comment on my blog: http://wordworks2001.blogspot.com

    Thanks,

    Jeff Brailey

  • Dr. Davis

    2/19/2007 11:30:00 PM |

    Hi, Jeff-
    I took a look at your Blog and congratulate you on takin the time and effort to talk about the bizarre state of affairs in heart disease. We know that the principle that explains much of what happens is "follow the money". I see it as my role to facilitate this conversation.

  • katkarma

    2/21/2007 12:54:00 AM |

    Dr. Davis - I have been trying to follow your recomasmendations on diet and supplements and am really confused today as the new studies on Women and Heart Disease have contridicted the use of folic acid.  I take 2mg a day and it has brought my homocysteine down below 7 for the first time.   Do you think Women should be treated entirely differently than men as far as heart disease and plague is concerned.   Do you find a difference in the genders in your studies?   If so, how and what?   Thanks so much,
    Noreen Boles

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