In addition to its role as an educator, advocate, and disseminator of best practice guidelines, the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) actively engages in influencing policy decisions related to worker wellness, prevention, and safety. Since the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, ACOEM has been taking every opportunity to demonstrate to lawmakers the connection between a healthy workforce and a healthy economy, workplace wellness programs and chronic disease management, and between prevention services and cost savings. According to ACOEM’s chief lobbyist Pat O’Connor, it has not been a walk in the park.
“It’s discouraging that there are members of Congress who talk about the importance of prevention and then at the same time try to cut the [ACA’s Prevention and Public Health] Trust Fund.”
Maintaining the funding allocated to the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund (PPHTF) has been an ACOEM objective since Congress passed the ACA. And they’re working with about three hundred organizations to do so. The fund was originally allocated 15 billion dollars over ten years for a host of prevention goals, but it lost about half of it to a continuation of payroll tax breaks and more recently to middle-class tax relief and a Medicare payment adjustment to physicians. According to Mr. O’Connor, the most recent cut was “a larger percentage than we wanted but not as large as some in Congress would have liked it to be.”
In addition to protecting the PPHTF, the college recently collaborated with the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the Health Enhancement Research Group on a consensus statement on the ACA’s workplace wellness incentives. You can read the statement at: www.acoem.org/uploadedFiles/Public_Affairs/Policies_And_Position_Statements/JOEM.
Last July ACOEM held a Capitol Hill hearing to bring attention to the nation’s epidemic of chronic illness and the power simple prevention measures have to reverse the trend and bring unnecessary healthcare spending down. A special briefing for the Congressional Wellness Council this January gave ACOEM representatives a chance to explain how more emphasis on workplace wellness would ultimately mean retirees would be healthier when entering Medicare, hence apt to use fewer Medicare dollars.
Mr. O’Connor of Kent & O’Connor Government Affairs said ACOEM keeps a close eye on the federal budget process. With the Prevention and Public Health Trust Fund (PPHTF) viewed by many lawmakers as a convenient and easy-to-raid pot of funds, this watchful eye is necessary. “We find out who the swing votes are in the Senate, generate letters, and anytime there’s a threat to the PPHTF, we raise the noise level as high as we can,” he said.
Other ACOEM policy projects include an upcoming collaboration with the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) on a study comparing the health of new Medicare enrollees who had participated in employee wellness programs with the health of new enrollees who had not––the hypothesis being that retirees who had been in wellness programs will require less healthcare services than the control group.
On top of all this, ACOEM has launched a Healthy Workforce Now initiative (www.acoem.org/healthy-workforcenow.aspx). It is an effort to create a culture of health in the workplace and includes a 10-step action plan that can potentially carry a “workplace-centered national health reform effort forward.”
“Employers are in a position of tremendous leverage in terms of our national healthcare costs,” said ACOEM President Ron Loeppke, M.D., at the January 28 Congressional Wellness Council briefing. “More than 130 million people are employed in the United States, and evidenced-based population health management programs in the workplace–applied comprehensively—have the potential to significantly impact the health of those heading to retirement.”
By Isabelle T. Walker
“Employers are in a position of tremendous leverage in terms of our national healthcare costs.”
—Ron Loeppke, M.D.
