Nashville, TN (PRWEB) November 3, 2005 –-
Gordian Health Solutions, Inc. today announced the addition of 52 new clients in 2005, bringing comprehensive population health management services to employees of its client companies nationwide. The new business includes two state health plans and fully-insured and self-insured employers ranging up to 100,000 eligible lives. This represents 75 percent growth in revenues in 2005.
Gordian, based in Nashville, Tenn., is a nationally-recognized leader in population health management, with a full line of tools to analyze health status, health management programs and services, and unparalleled results reporting and tracking capabilities.
“More and more employers and insurers recognize the potential cost savings and health benefits of population health management,” said Gregg Lehman, PhD, president and CEO of Gordian. “By keeping their workforce healthy and offering health coaching expertise to those that have been diagnosed with a chronic condition, employers are offering the best employee benefit of all—better health.”
The Missouri Consolidated Health Care Plan (MCHCP), that state’s employee health insurance program, began implementation of its program in October. In his announcement of the Gordian program Sept. 22, Missouri’s Gov. Matt Blunt said the new program will help employees “identify their personal health risks and then help them address those risks so they will be healthier and less likely to need expensive medical care.”
“Employers have been experiencing double digit health care cost increases since 2001, and our growth has occurred in parallel with those annual cost increases,” said Roger Reed, executive vice president and chief health officer at Gordian. “Annual health care costs of this magnitude erode profit margins and hamper employers’ efforts to provide better benefits, increase wages and still remain competitive. Employers find the Gordian solution attractive because Gordian delivers documented short- and long-term hard savings while other cost containment solutions seemed to be faltering.”
According to survey results released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Sept. 14, companies of all sizes expect health care costs to jump an additional 12 percent over the next year. Business owners surveyed say they will ask their employees to pay an average of 21 percent of the increase—although four out of five say they are concerned about their employees' ability to pay the projected increases
More evidence is emerging that employers who expand their health benefit offerings to include population health and disease management are reaping measurable rewards. A recent scholarly review of return on investment for disease management programs concluded that positive return was found for programs addressing several chronic disease diagnoses when considering medical costs savings alone. The authors concluded that even more savings may be found, when considering productivity outcomes within the working population.
”Customers purchase Gordian products fully expecting to achieve a positive return on investment, typically within the first year,” Reed said. “Do these employers care about the health of their employees? Yes, without a doubt, because they know that better health leads to reduced health care utilization and reduced health care costs overall. These are the key ingredients of the successful programs Gordian offers.”
Gordian is unique in its ability to tie individual employee participation in health behavioral change programs to discounts in their health insurance premiums. The company’s sophisticated IT platform allows clients to lower the amount employees pay for health insurance as a program incentive for participation in any number of Gordian’s lifestyle, health management and disease management programs.
“Our clients find that the right incentives greatly increase employee participation,” Lehman said. “And tying incentives directly to health insurance premiums helps employers keep the employee portion of rising premium costs in check.”
Gordian’s ability to customize employee communications that reflect each client’s plan design, specific program offerings and incentives to participate is another key success factor.
“Our clients like the idea that they can use their own branding to introduce and implement our programs, or that we can design a complete turnkey communications package to reflect their corporate culture,” Reed said.
Gordian clients select from a menu of programs, including Weigh To Be Healthy DM, its newest obesity management program. Other popular programs tackle cholesterol management, blood pressure management, stress management, and disease management for diabetes and heart disease.
About Gordian Health Solutions, Inc.
Gordian is a national population health management company based in Nashville, Tennessee. The company offers a comprehensive suite of products and services such as population health risk analysis, telephonic counseling, online products, health education hotlines, on-site health education/fitness center management and lifestyle and disease management programs. Gordian works with employers, health plans and hospitals to identify, control and manage health risks and their associated costs. Through targeted and tailored programs, and sophisticated tracking, monitoring and reporting capabilities, Gordian works with clients to measure program progress and cost savings. Visit Gordian at http://www.gordian-health.com.
Contact:
Karla Hurter
Phone: 703-319-0957
NOTE TO EDITORS: If you would like to interview Gregg Lehman, PhD, CEO of Gordian, contact Katherine Capps 703-319-0957.
This press release was distributed through eMediawire by Human Resources Marketer (HR Marketer: http://www.HRmarketer.com) on behalf of the company listed above.
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