Less panic during the panic – participate in wellness programs!

We’re all tuning in to the news programs and seeing the economy coming apart at the seams. As one financial institution after another crumbles, the hardship this causes is coming closer and closer to affecting everyday life. People who are still employed dread the day when cutbacks at their job put them into a tougher spot.

Many companies are discovering the secret to cushioning the blow that comes from these tough times. The trick is saving thousands on healthcare costs by encouraging what so many of us strive for anyway–good health. Wellness programs are the insurance behind the insurance, promoting a healthy lifestyle for you and your family by:

• eating right
• maintaining a healthy weight
• avoiding harmful habits like smoking
• becoming more active and energetic
• going to the doctor and actively preventing all-too-common ailments like diabetes and heart disease

Not only does living a healthy lifestyle keep you and yours in good shape, but it ends up saving your company big money in claims costs because less people are getting sick. So you have secure health and a more secure job.

So we at BenefitsVIP encourage you to partake in your company’s wellness programs, now and after this economic dilemma is long gone. It ends up being a win-win situation, which we all need.

 

Study shows that flu vaccines work!…so what are you waiting for?

A new study of nearly 20,000 patients of all ages shows that the flu vaccine is a statistical success in curbing the often-troublesome, sometimes-dangerous influenza disease. The study, done by CVS Caremark, found that hospital visits related to pneumonia and influenza went down 24% for people who received the immunization. What’s more, overall hospital visits went down nearly 20% among the vaccinated group.

Colder weather is on the way, and flu season, as always, is right behind it. The above evidence shows that the flu vaccine works. With the flu vaccine, you can keep your family healthy and out of the hospital this winter, especially if someone you know suffers from chronic conditions like diabetes, heart failure, or asthma.

Flu vaccinations are inexpensive and easy to come by. The flu season started this month, so now is the time to receive your flu shot if you have not yet. Talk to your HR manager about where you can get a flu vaccination to help insure yourself against a cold that doesn’t need to be so common.

 

Getting snacking right!

Our last post talked about starting the day on as healthy a note as possible by choosing the right foods for breakfast.

This post goes into another typically-unhealthy consumption practice: snacks.

People often bridge the long gap between lunch and dinner with a mini-meal of candy or chips (sometimes both!)  While there is likely nobody from V8 running around the workplace smacking these people in the head, they are definitely missing out on a chance to refresh their tired bodies with a more nutritious snack.

Fruit, cups of yogurt, instant breakfast drinks like Ensure and V8, and cheese crackers are all easy,  more healthy substitutes than the usually high fructose/partially hydrogenated snacks that fall from your local vending machine.  Just as a good breakfast can make you feel far better throughout the early part of the day, a proper snack can give you energy and focus to insure yourself that you’ll finish out that day on a good note.

If you have a little time on your hands to create an even more flavorful break food, try these recipes for healthy snacks.

 

Get Breakfast Right!

We’ve all heard about how breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Some people translate that as “eat something, no matter what it is.” Though it’s true that eating something when you wake up jump-starts your metabolism and is better than eating nothing at all, getting breakfast right by eating healthier foods is even better.

Several people, myself included have a very busy start to their day. Since time is short, many of them get their morning fix on the way to work, usually at those quintessential diet road-bumps: fast food restaurants. In addition to their breakfast staples, chains like McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts are constantly rolling out tantalizing new premium offerings on their morning menu for participants in the rat race. Those foods are, more often than not, high in saturated fats and sodium. You may get the chance to burn off the calories from these hefty helpings during your workday, but their low nutritonal value will still slow you down. Eating a relatively nutritious alternative will keep your energy level up, meaning you could be less tempted to drink those extra cups of coffee later in the day.

Medical advice site WebMD, which creates great slide shows about nutrition and other topics, shows in a recent offering which fast food breakfasts to avoid at popular restaurant chains and which are a better bet. The foods to avoid are really not that surprising; enjoying an”enormous omelette sandwich” or a “junior breakfast burger” is pure hedonism, and the smarter and likely just as satisfying choice exists in a different breakfast.

The experts at WebMD suggests eating at home, if possible. One thing I like to do for my morning routine is to make a fast food breakfast trip a special once-a-week event. If you can make time to eat cereal, toast and/or eggs at home before heading to work, you’ll have the opportunity to start your day off with a more nutritious meal and save money. And even the most plain bagels from Dunkin Donuts will seem like a real treat if you enjoy them in moderation.

 

Get fit – any which way you can!

Regular exercise is a crucial part of living a healthy lifestyle and preventing health problems down the road. Experts recommend 30-90 minutes of strenuous activity for adults. This is a difficult level to achieve for many Americans, but there are ways for everyone to start. The worst exercise you can get is none at all. The Mayo Clinic details more benefits of exercise, such as mood improvement and sleeping better.

Many companies are helping their employees stay fit with gym memberships or in-house fitness centers. But as long as you have the time and take the necessary measures to avoid injury, you could just as well get the exercise you need from the comfort of your own home.

If you’ve been thinking of doing any of the following:

Losing weight
Building up healthy weight
Getting toned
Getting stronger
Being active

-then check out these do-it-yourself fitness websites and insure yourself that you’ll be on your way to getting in great shape!

http://www.fullfitness.net/ – If you can get by the spelling errors, this website is a great, free resource that lays out procedures that match what you want to do with your body and what you can do. The constantly-updated site also tells you how to do all the suggested exercises.

www.mamashealth.com – This webpage goes in depth on creating a respectable home gym without spending a lot.

 

Buying Prescription Drugs at Walmart

Walmart continues to find new ways to make their stores contain everything you would ever want to find in a gigantic box.

With a visit to one of these singular, vast stores, consumers can buy: clothes to keep themselves warm and possibly fashionable; food to sustain themselves (and their pets); TVs and video games to stay entertained; automotive supplies to keep their cars running (even gas in some places!). And it’s all incredibly cheap, so when they finally leave that giant box they still have some money – unless they spent it on more cheap stuff like an eye exam or a sandwich from Subway, which are also readily available inside the small metropolis that is your local Walmart.

They also provide something that BenefitsVIP can whole-heartedly support: prescription drugs for four dollars. Walmart boasts that they provide $4 30-day supplies of 95% of the drugs for which prescriptions are written in the US. And recently, they began providing 90-day supplies of many of these drugs for $10.

These drugs were long priced so highly that purchasing them was a huge burden for low- and fixed-income Americans. Walmart is able to provide them at cheap prices because of what they don’t have: a brand name. They are generic drugs. They are produced not by the initial pharmaceutical company who jacked up prices to recoup high research costs, but by post-patent companies who sell them at competitive prices.

The generic drugs are exactly like the expensive, name-brand drug. As Walmart’s FAQ shows, they have the same active ingredients in the same concentrations, the same purity and stability (and the same side effects). Though many top brand-name drugs are not available for these low prices, Walmart says these cheaper copies have already saved Americans over $1 billion.

This isn’t available for everyone, though. North Dakotans have no access to these $4 prescriptions at all. Also, certain drugs are more expensive in the following states:
California
Colorado
Hawaii
Minnesota
Montana
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Despite these technicalities, most are calling the cheap drug offerings from this guy a great opportunity to save money on health costs, especially in tough times like these. This is even starting up a bit of competition, as Target, Walmart’s chief rival in the business of empire-sized emporiums, plans to at least regionally match the $4 deal.

We at BenefitsVIP are always looking for ways for you to stay healthy and save money on healthcare. We think that a trip to the Walmart pharmacy is a good way to see if you and your family can be insured for a little less. Chances are that you’re going to Walmart anyway, whether it’s for a loaf of bread, a new pair of jeans, a Playstation, or all of the above plus a family photo!

 

The Secret’s Out: Wellness is In!

BenefitsVIP.com has some useful insider information that shows just why companies are implementing more wellness programs and urging their employees to lead healthier lives and lifestyles.

A new report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH for short) shows that prevention programs could save the United States over $16 billion in just five years’ time. The average return on investment for healthcare payers, from Medicare to private payers, is over 5 to 1. A $100,000 investment by a company is, on average, saving the company over half a million dollars!

Wellness programs implemented to stop common life-threatening conditions like heart disease and stroke are effective enough to reduce cases five percent in five years. Diabetes-prevention programs, a useful tool in a time when over 24 million Americans suffer from Type II diabetes, reduce cases five percent in only two years!

People are always saying that the cost of healthcare is a tough pill to swallow. The information in this TFAH report shows that living a healthier lifestyle makes that pill easier to take. Employers are heeding this advice. More companies than ever are going to start using disease management and wellness programs.

And it pays to start your path too wellness on your own. You can avoid leg-pulling from your boss by learning how to eat right, getting enough exercise and quitting the habits you know are bad for you. This helps you feel even better; overall it creates an even bigger return on investment, which means there’s more money saved on healthcare to go around for other things!

 

Update on Salmonella Scare

As seen in this iVillage report, there is good news and bad news in the search for the source of the latest produce-borne bacterial outbreak.

Tomatoes were the first suspects in carrying salmonella, which has infected over 1,200 people nationwide. They recently got off the hook when they were all labeled safe to eat by the FDA.

But now the FDA is warning against jalapeno and serrano peppers, which this blog reported as suspect two weeks ago. The infected peppers were found in a Southern Texas distribution facility and were flagged as a product of Mexico. Remember that even if this is far from your home, the food may still have reached your local supermarket.

As you read the report, you will see that still nothing is set in stone. Mexico is not necessarily the source of the bacteria infecting these crops.

We at BenefitsVIP recommend you continue to insure yourself against salmonella by watching out for suspect produce. Also, in general, remember to wash all food properly before eating. Head here to learn more about handling food properly.

 

Dixie still tips the scales – so what to do?

It’s well known that people in the South go about life a little differently. Some admire their easy-going, unhurried attitude, and that hospitality of theirs is notorious. That wonderful simplicity is echoed in their regional cuisine, which does not need to be described by the highfalutin language of some cosmopolitan food critic: anything “Southern-fried” is just good.

That lifestyle comes with a price though: the South has led the nation for years in obesity rates. As CNN reports, a new CDC survey shows that not much has changed, with all but one of the top ten most obese states being below the Mason-Dixon line. Mississippi still leads the pack with nearly one in three survey respondents having the Body Mass Index qualifications for the epidemic situation. As the report states, though, the other top states are not far behind. And let no Yankees or Westerners fool themselves: the entire nation is facing weight trouble – 26 percent of survey respondents nationwide are considered obese.

While we here at BenefitsVIP encourage people to insure themselves with healthy lifestyles, we realize that one of the greatest obstacles to achieving those lifestyles is tradition. The report notes one of the main reasons for the South’s consistent leadership in obesity rates is due to its high-fat food. And just about every culture throughout our varied country is anchored by great meals, and in this land of plenty those great meals can come often – almost too often. And moderation is often too noble to take up around family and friends.

But obesity often leads to other problems like Type II diabetes and heart disease, not to mention all that extra weight that slows you down to a point that even some Southerners might not appreciate.

So Americans who want to live healthier lifestyles (all of them) face a difficult balancing act. As healthcare costs rise, your boss will want you to stay fit to ultimately reduce company expenses. But Grandma’s insistence on you having another helping at the dinner table is just about impossible to deny. And your friends at the bar use a strong argument in urging you to have another drink: “Come on!”

I’ll leave this up to you, the commenter: How can we start a new culture of healthy living in this country without straying too far from our roots?

 

Salmonella: the problem spreads

This salmonella outbreak continues to intensify. CNN recently mentioned that over 1000 people have fallen ill. Tomatoes are not the only culprits for the epidemic – peppers are now flagged as disease carriers, as well. Other sources may reveal themselves shortly.

The problem is that the source of the bacteria is still unknown. With so much up in the air, the best way to insure yourself against the adverse affects of the salmonella bacteria is to recognize its symptoms. CNN also recently provided a sobering story on a man who discovered too late that he had the disease, and then provides warning signs that could prevent the same from happening to you.

Always wash and prepare your food thoroughly. If you notice any potential symptoms of salmonella, contact your doctor.