Matthew Holt

Interview with Fred Goldstein, US Preventive Medicine

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By Matthew Holt

Last year US Preventive  Medicine (USPM) caused a little splash with some full page ads in the Wall Street Journal proclaiming itself the future of preventative care. Since then the company, which has raised a significant chunk of private capital, has been diversifying into various aspects of prevention–including what looks more like disease management.

About a year ago USPM acquired Fred Goldstein’s company Specialty Disease Management Services. And since then it’s been marketing The Prevention Plan to employers–including a recent deal with AON–and also putting out a very neat online service that was shown at Health 2.0 in October.

Prevention is getting some lofty rhetoric, including Prez2Be Obama suggesting that it’s a major key to cutting health care costs. But many people in health care think that it doesn’t have an ROI. Fred disagrees and told me why in a wide-ranging conversation about the company, the concept of prevention and whether it’s really the wave of the future. Click here to listen

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7 replies »

  1. Excellent blog here! Also your website rather a lot up very fast! What web host are you using? Can I get your associate hyperlink to your host? I want my site loaded up as fast as yours lol

  2. The last great carve out? So much of prevention is based on a healthy relationship with a physician counselor- life style and health behavior changes based on individual values and risks. It is lost here.
    What I am hearing is 40 value screening tests, high tech imaging. Do these prolong healthy life or create complacency- or at worse false positive anxieties and needless radiation and over-testing.
    The US preventive task force (USPTF not USPM) seeks truly evidence based screening- for better health outcomes vs ROI, orchestrated by a trusted physician supported by an EMR.

  3. I most certainly agree that prevention is always better than cure. There needs to be a company that sees more than financial gain for prevention to really take off. Its even in the Hippocratic oath “to first do no harm.” and “I will prevent whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.” It is going to take a little bit more time, but prevention is going to be preferred rather than disease management.

  4. Primary wellness, as it is called, has by far the most untapped potential. But it is untapped for a reason. It’s not just about going to the doctor and having the doctor prescribe something or cut something out of you. It’s about taking the trouble to inform yourself about better behaviors, and most important, about maintaining self-discipline so that you can follow through on your objectives despite temptations and (for most of us) a modern life that makes being sedentary hard to avoid.
    Given all these obstacles, I’m surprised Goldstein didn’t talk more about incentives and how his company is able to motivate people to change their lives. This is the sine qua non of a successful wellness program.
    As for the person calling himself “Wisdom”–Have you been paying attention? Please inform yourself about problems created by asymmetrical information in healthcare.

  6. It’s an interesting concept and an interesting business model. The big unknown variable is the patients. I hope USPM can sell the need for prevention to individuals better than others have done to this point. That will be the game changer.
    I’d like to hear him talk more about the coordination with current practitioners. It sounds like that is a work in progress.
    I also thought the concept of compression of morbidity was interesting. Considering how much we’re spending on chronic conditions, it makes sense that there would be a big ROI in that area.