Executive Health
A concept that taps into longevity, prevention, cost-savings, convenience, and more.
“To have all those services available to me in one day, there’s just no way I could find the latitude in my schedule to make appointments that otherwise would have required several weeks.”
– Dennis Morton, founder and principal at Morton Brown Family Wealth of Allentown
Have you ever said, “I’m too busy to go to the doctor” or “I feel fine. I don’t need a checkup”? Part of living a long life is knowing where you stand with your physical and mental health. Keeping tabs is also the way to catch problems early so they do not become more serious. The overall objective of this preventive mindset is to extend the healthy, active part of your life as long as possible.
Some health care organizations offer an experience they call “Executive Health.” It’s not marketed just for executives. It’s for anyone who wants to track their health status or who cannot expend the time to visit various doctors’ offices for exams and consultation. From an employer’s perspective, the model is especially valuable. It’s a stress-free way to assist employees who travel for business, have complex care needs, are concerned about family medical history, or for female employees who need comprehensive women’s services.
Executive health typically brings multiple routine exams and tests together in one day, at one location, with the opportunity to discuss concerns with doctors on the spot. The services can be personalized, with the ability to go beyond what insurance covers. These programs have become a way to transform the doctor’s visit from data gathering into a comfortable, integrated, head-to-toe evaluation by expert medical staff.
What’s the experience like?
To illustrate all that goes into an executive health visit, it might be helpful to sample a day at the clinic. We’re taking a step inside the Health Center at Palmer Township at Northampton Crossings in Easton, where Lehigh Valley Health Network’s (LVHN’s) program takes place. One aspect that makes an executive health program so attractive is that services are personalized based on the patient’s needs. Therefore, the following is a general overview but may not represent the services everyone would choose.
- Welcome! The patient is greeted by an internal medicine physician who will go over their personalized agenda for the day. The agenda is arranged at a pre-program meeting with a nurse navigator, who assesses the patient’s needs with the patient.
- Vital signs are taken by a medical assistant, including body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure, and respiration rate.
- Diagnostic testing begins, comprising a variety of ultrasounds and blood tests depending upon the patient’s personalized agenda. (Care is taken to avoid unnecessary testing or anything that would expose the patient to unnecessary risks.)
- Breakfast is served. The patient enjoys a light breakfast in their private suite.
- A complete physical exam is conducted, which covers a review of the patient’s medical history, vaccination record, skin cancer screening, vision exam, audiogram, depression and anxiety screening, cardiac stress test, spirometry, and a gynecological exam for women.
- Lunch is provided – along with a relaxation break.
- A nutritional assessment is conducted by a registered dietitian.
- Wellness coaching and a body composition assessment are conducted by a certified health and wellness coach.
- An afternoon break signals the tests are over and the review begins.
- A complete review is conducted, where an internal medicine physician goes over the results of the medical exams and screenings and makes recommendations to the patient on ways to improve their health and well-being going forward.
- Mammography services at the health center’s Breast Health Suite are included for women patients.
What comes afterward?
Executive health programs like the one at LVHN pack a lot into eight hours and 45 minutes. If all those tests and exams were completed independently, it would take months to get them all in – as noted by Dennis Morton in the quote above. People find running around to various practitioners to be extremely cumbersome, so they often put their exams off. With an executive health program, all of it is accomplished in a single day.
In the case of LVHN, the service continues after the executive health day has ended. Patients have the ongoing assistance of a care navigator for a full year post-exam to help with referrals, scheduling, and general information. The services of the wellness team are also available, including health coaching, tobacco cessation, and consultation with an exercise physiologist. A travel medicine exam can also be included if needed.
For many, these programs take health care up a notch in convenience, time savings, one-on-one consult with clinicians, timely results, and ultimately, peace of mind. Since getting there is sometimes the hardest part, these programs solve a whole range of problems and put patients where they need to be to assess their health status. As the experts say, the key to catching any health problems is having the physical in the first place.
What Our Clients Say
“If it wasn’t for this Executive Health Program, I might not have seen a doctor for another five years. Then, five years later, it might have been a much different ending.”
– Eric Lebby, MD, whose executive health exam revealed an elevated PSA, and who was later diagnosed with prostate cancer.
LVHN Executive Health Program
Your time is valuable. Your health is priceless.