Wellness not illness

During an insomnia induced round of net surfing, I came across this bit of information at The Obesity Society Newsletter. It stated, "Last year TennCare, the Tennessee Medicaid provider, completed a pilot program for 1,400 Medicaid recipients who paid nominal fees to participate in Weight Watchers. According to TennCare, the participants lost a total of more than 8,000 pounds." That's a whole lot of fat, but it is estimated that one in seven Tennesseans is obese.

In Memphis Medical News, Marilyn Elam of Tenncare stated, "The partnership works fairly simply. TennCare enrollees who are technically considered obese can walk into any Weight Watchers office in the state and sign up for a 12-week program. They pay $1 per meeting and agree to attend at least 10 of the 12 meetings and to meet the initial minimum weight loss goal of four pounds. TennCare, in return, pays the $10 per meeting co-payment. Weight Watchers provides TennCare with a $1 per meeting discount and waives the $35 enrollment fee. If the enrollees meet these criteria, they can reenroll for another 12 weeks."

"From TennCare's perspective, for one 12-week program it's costing us $120 per enrollee, a minimal investment for proven results," Elam said. "If an enrollee sustains some modest weight loss, it will actually reduce an overweight person's lifetime medical costs up to $5,300 and that's by lowering the cost of treatment for things like hypertension, diabetes and heart disease."

In the same article, Carolyn Kalil, vice president of Weight Watchers of Middle and East Tennessee added, "In a lot of the cases, this is not about losing vanity weight. It's not about losing 20 to 30 pounds for a class reunion. The people I'm talking to, it's now or never."

This was of particular interest to me because I am one of those 1400 people and as of December 30, 2006, 31.4 of those 8000 pounds were mine. This year, my weight loss through the Tenncare Weight Watchers cooperative program, is now 77.6 pounds. I am covered by Tenncare because I have been denied insurance everywhere else I turned because of my weight.

In the two years prior to joining Weight Watchers, I had decided to live a more healthy life and had gradually lost 50 pounds on my own. Despite those changes, I needed a more dedicated effort. What finally convinced me to start seriously dieting was waking up on the floor of my bathroom after passing out from high blood pressure. Getting healthy for me was pretty literally at that now or never point, and I needed help to do it. I was at my physician's office a couple of weeks ago to have maintenance medications for my blood pressure reviewed prior to obtaining refills. For the first time since August of last year, my blood pressure was in the normal range, and if it stays that way, I'll soon be off the two prescriptions I take to manage it. More than my size is changing here.

Tenncare may have its problems, but this is one program that's working. The budget for Tenncare is $7 billion dollars to cover 1.2 million people. According to the Tennessee State Budget, the projected cost for the Weight Watchers program for 2007 is $756,200, less than one tenth of one percent of the total Tenncare budget. By participating in this pro-active program that actually does something about building wellness, not just treating illness, I'll be off the Tenncare rolls one of these days because I'll be able to get insurance on my own.

In the meantime, Tennessee and Weight Watchers, I thank you.

Tenncare, Weight Watchers, obesity