“Maximize Your Benefits: Maximize Your Health” is the theme of Pro-Change Behavior System, Inc.’s innovative Proactive Health Consumer (PHC) Program, which is uniquely positioned to address the needs of uninsured or underinsured Americans (who may soon have additional health coverage). The PHC program is designed to help all individuals—ready or not—to make informed decisions about health and health care, share in decision making with their health care providers, use health services wisely, avoid unnecessary and potentially costly care, and engage in ongoing health and wellness. Given the complexity of people’s interactions with the health care system, the PHC program addresses each user’s role as purchaser, provider, and patient.
The stakeholders in recent health care reform (e.g., AMA, AHA, Pharma, Health Plans, Employers, and Government) agreed on one thing: If the U.S. is to afford health care for all Americans, then prevention will need to be the foundation for health care. The ongoing health and wellness component of the PHC program is comprised of seven behavior change modules that won the 2009 Gold Award from URAC for Best Practices for Health Management. These evidence-based, high impact interventions treat the behaviors that have the highest disease burden, the highest health care cost burden, and the highest lost productivity burden—including smoking, obesity, nonadherence, stress, and depression. These behavior change programs will also be crucial for the newly insured who have already developed chronic conditions. The combination of these behavior change programs for multiple behaviors with the program components designed to enhance personal responsibility for health offers a truly comprehensive solution.
Central to the success of the PHC program is its ability to tailor the user’s feedback to responses provided to evidence-based assessments of up to 14 of the most important behavior change variables, beginning with readiness to change. Using proprietary technology and statistical decision-making rules, the program generates feedback customized to each user’s answers. Each time the user returns to the program, the features available are updated based on past interactions and the progress made since the last visit. Sophisticated back-end tracking supports organization specific and aggregate reporting capabilities.
To ensure access to the timely and accurate health information, the PHC program incorporates the award-winning Healthwise® Knowledgebase. Dr. Janice Prochaska, President and CEO of Pro-Change, said, “We believe strongly that offering the PHC program to the newly insured has the potential to have dramatic impacts on their health and health care. It is time for comprehensive, evidence-based solutions of this kind to facilitate true changes in how health care is delivered in the U.S.”