Undoctored Health
Employer Health Plan
May 2020
Program Overview
With modern healthcare, we must face some stark realities:
- Healthcare costs are crippling the U.S. economy. The exceptional costs also reduce employee compensation.
- Increasing healthcare costs have not resulted in improved health. In fact, the opposite is occurring: American workers are becoming less healthy.
- Workplace wellness programs do not work. The best evidence shows that workplace wellness programs yield no cost savings and do not achieve measurable improvements in health, despite claims made by the wellness industry.
- Genuine health is easily and readily achievable without great expense, provided participants are properly motivated and willing to engage in a simple collection of health strategies.The result: freedom from numerous common chronic diseases and a resulting dramatic healthcare cost savings.
Undoctored Health delivers an unconventional but effective program via video, educational modules, and live video interactions from founder, William Davis, MD and certified program coaches over a 8-10 week online experience. Participant health data is collected at entry, then at follow-up with the goal of achieving marked improvements in health measures and healthcare costs.
What went wrong with modern healthcare?
Somewhere along the way, healthcare in America became a profit-driven industry, commanding $20 billion every year in statin cholesterol drugs, $20 billion for stomach acid-blocking drugs, $120 billion for obesity,
over $300 billion for people with diabetes, just to name a few. It is a $3 trillion industry, consuming 18% of the US Gross Domestic Product, and it continues to grow, largely funded through employers.
With the average American consuming $10,000 per year in healthcare expenses, employers and employees shoulder the costs of this system. Ironically, while healthcare costs are the highest in history, and U.S. costs
are the highest in the world, American health is declining with more people who are obese or overweight, have type 2 diabetes and associated chronic diseases like heart and kidney disease, and are consuming more
prescription drugs than ever, including many thousands of dollars per month for increasingly prescribed biologic agents.
If we put aside the desire for healthcare profit, it is clear that there are
hundreds of health conditions that we have the power to
reverse or
relieve without the use of drugs, expensive tests, or multiple visits to the doctors’ office. Common conditions that incur the bulk of healthcare costs, such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension, acid reflux, irritable bowel syndrome, fatty liver, and migraine headaches can be addressed without resorting to doctor visits, prescription drugs, or hospitalization. But these solutions will not come from the doctor, the healthcare system, nor from the overly-simplistic practices provided by workplace wellness programs. They come from engaging in a program that addresses the underlying causes of common chronic health conditions.
The solution
The Undoctored Health program was created to deliver a simple-to-follow, though unconventional, approach to restoring health by addressing the factors that allow disease to emerge in the first place. We therefore do not “treat” high blood sugars or high blood pressure, for example; instead, we address factors that allow high blood sugars or high blood pressure to emerge. While that distinction seems minor, it represents a major and powerful insight into human health. It allows a participant to reverse numerous health conditions simultaneously. Participants are typically freed from many, if not all, prescription medications, lose weight when appropriate, and achieve higher levels of daytime functioning. People typically report having better sleep, increased daytime energy and alertness, and improved mood.
The Undoctored Health program delivers nutrition and simple nutritional supplement protocols, supplemented by one-on-one and group coaching via online video interactions. Undoctored Health provides a road map and guidance to foster dramatic changes in health while freeing participants from healthcare as much as possible. Although the program was founded by cardiologist, Dr. William Davis, Undoctored Health does not practice medicine; all medical decisions will be deferred to the participants’ physicians, decisions such as being able to stop blood pressure or diabetes medications, although Undoctored Health staff will communicate recommendations.
The program is divided into 14 modules of video and text delivered via our online platform. Small group, and when desired, individual meetings are conducted via video on the Zoom platform. Baseline, and then follow-up health information is collected. Undoctored Health also works with your company’s staff to develop an approach to calculate healthcare cost savings after completion of the program.
The costs of delivering the Undoctored Health program depend on the number of participants enrolled:
For:
- 1-499 participants: $750 per participant
- 500-999 participants: $650 per participant
- >1000 participants: $580 per participant
FAQs
Q: How does Undoctored Health compare to workplace wellness programs?
A: Think about it: Why would “knowing your numbers,” meaning blood pressure and cholesterol values, yield benefits such as freedom from the bowel urgency of irritable bowel syndrome,
joint swelling and pain of rheumatoid arthritis, depression, the crippling low self-esteem and impaired functioning of being 100+ pounds overweight? It does not.
Let’s face it:
Workplace wellness programs do not work. They do not reduce healthcare costs and do not help participants become healthy. Early efforts to assess the effects of workplace wellness programs
were guilty of a phenomenon called selection bias: people who wanted to be healthy were more likely to enroll, while people who had no interest did not. The outcomes of these two groups were then compared. Obviously,
people interested in improving their health would incur less healthcare costs and were overall healthier. But more recent analyses in which participants were randomly assigned to a wellness program or not,
thereby eliminating selection bias, showed no differences:
no healthcare costs were saved, no one became healthier.
Real health requires efforts beyond the overly-simplistic efforts of a workplace wellness program. In Undoctored Health, we address common factors that allow modern chronic diseases to emerge in the first place.
The same simple efforts therefore correct hypertension, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular risk in the majority. And we achieve this without prescription drugs or procedures.
Q: What sort of participants are appropriate for the Undoctored Health program?
A: The primary requirement is that someone is truly interested in regaining health, slenderness, and freedom from prescription medication. Because much of the program involves changes in eating habits, a program of nutritional supplements, and efforts to cultivate a healthy microbiome, there is simply no way to introduce such practices into someone’s life who is not committed to change. Employers can, of course, provide incentives to participate, e.g., reduction in employee contribution to healthcare insurance premiums, cash bonuses, etc. But the truly essential ingredient is commitment to health change.
Dr. Davis provides an introductory overview of the program: what it involves, what to expect, etc. and provides an opportunity to enroll at that time. This can be performed in person (if regional Midwest) or via online group video. (We can accommodate up to several hundred attendees at a time. Alternatively, we can provide smaller group introductory meetings to accommodate different segments of your employee population.)
Q: Are the life changes made in the Undoctored Health program expensive?
A: At the start, there are changes necessary in food choices and the addition of several nutritional supplements. It means that each participant will need to reorganize their refrigerator and pantry, which involves purchasing new foods consistent with the program. But long-term, most people report either no increase in costs or a modest cost savings. This is due to the natural reduction in appetite and calorie intake experienced on this program, even though it does not involve purposeful calorie reduction. A typical participant experiences a reduction of 400-800 calories per day intake. If a family of four follows the program, this results in 12,000-24,000 fewer calories taken in over the course of a month per person, 48,000-96,000 fewer calories for the entire family that do not need to be purchased. There are also, of course, considerable cost savings as people become healthier and do not require medications and doctor visits.
Q: If an employee is under the active care of a doctor and, for instance, is managing diabetes medications, prescription drugs for high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, high cholesterol, etc.
how will the Undoctored Health program be coordinated with the employer’s doctor?
A: We collect health information (privately; HIPAA-compliant) at enrollment to identify these conditions, then inform participants when they have a situation that requires either clearance by a doctor or notifying the doctor of the intended health changes. Our primary concern is to maintain safety for the participant to avoid, for instance, a drop in blood pressure or blood sugar as someone taking blood pressure medications enjoys lower blood pressures or lower blood sugars, phenomena that begin within the first 24 hours of participation.
About Us
William Davis, MD is co-founder of Undoctored Health and cardiologist with over 25 years clinical practice experience. He is also author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Wheat Belly book series, as well as the book Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor. His primary mission is to deliver programs that show how people can become healthier and achieve higher levels of performance on their own and minimize reliance on conventional healthcare.
Christopher Kliesmet, BSEE, MBA is co-founder of the Undoctored Health Program and consults in the areas of business process automation and database design. Mr. Kliesmet oversees business and financial operations as well as the development of health data collection and analysis systems.
Jennifer Baynes is a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach with additional certification and experience in helping those with gut health-related challenges. Jennifer has interests in the potential for human performance, anti-aging, and optimal health by incorporating Undoctored principals, as well as testing and quantifying human biomarkers using easily obtainable consumer technology.
Donna Crain, MS, CNHP holds a Master’s Degree in Rehabilitation Psychology, a discipline that focuses on people who have disabilities and/or chronic health conditions. Donna is also a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach with training in nutrition as well as digestive and hormonal health. Donna’s mission is to partner with the Undoctored clients to help them understand the protocol and provide support and guidance in making the sustainable changes necessary to support their long-term health goals.