Why Holistic Health?
Healthcare in the US must transform. That transformation should include a more holistic health approach where consumers are involved daily in their health, not just at the annual check-up or after there is already a problem. Just think about the current “sick care” model where we only receive treatment after we are sick. That leads to unnecessary suffering as well as inefficiency.
What if there was wide-spread agreement that 30% of healthcare costs were either for unnecessary treatment or just outright waste? There is.
What if “medical care” only accounted for 6% to 20% of a person’s health, depending on which study you want to use? It does.
What about the epidemic of Chronic Illnesses? The culprits that continue to drive up our healthcare costs dramatically for the last several decades account for 86% of the current healthcare spend in the US. More importantly, chronic disease takes so many lives while wrecking the quality of life for those who survive.
What if those Chronic Illnesses were often preventable and perhaps even reversible by relying on the other health determinants that impact 80% – 94% of a person’s health? They are:
With non-communicable conditions accounting for nearly two-thirds of deaths worldwide, the emergence of chronic diseases as the predominant challenge to global health is undisputed. In the USA, chronic diseases are the main causes of poor health, disability, and death, and account for most of health-care expenditures. The chronic disease burden in the USA largely results from a short list of risk factors—including tobacco use, poor diet and physical inactivity (both strongly associated with obesity), excessive alcohol consumption, uncontrolled high blood pressure, and hyperlipidaemia—that can be effectively addressed for individuals and populations.
The list of risk factors included:
- tobacco use,
- poor diet
- insufficient physical inactivity,
- excessive alcohol consumption,
- uncontrolled high blood pressure, and
- hyperlipidaemia (or high triglycerides, often related to diet)
It is time for a transformation in healthcare. The boundaries of healthcare are expanding and consumers are becoming more involved in their health decisions. That is all good. To support this transformation, HealthCare Too has developed a platform and approach to help consumers. Let us tell you a bit about it.
Holistic Health For Your The Healthcare Consumer
Developing the HealthCare Too platform for consumer healthcare is more than technology. It is a philosophy for transforming healthcare through consumer action that works in concert with conventional medicine. Holistic Health is knowledge, therapies, products, services that help consumers realize health as the World Health Organization defines it: Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
Awareness & Education
A fundamental part of HealthCare Too is awareness and education. We seek to provide useful knowledge in our blog posts as well as helpful products in our daily bargain shopping. Please feel free to read our contributions as well as the original articles (to which we always provide links). Our knowledge comes from so many before us and is enhanced by those who share now and in the future. Bookmark our Blog or sign up to receive our newsletter!
Your Holistic Health "Cocktail"
During an interview, Aetna CEO Mark Bertollini referenced his own battle with pain management after a severe accident. His story really hit home with us.
I injured my spinal cord and was in constant pain from neuropathy. I did not want to be on controlled-substances for pain, so I tried a number of alternative medicines including cranialsacral therapy, acupuncture, mindfulness and yoga. This combination, which I call my cocktail, has worked to the point where I don’t take any pain medication and can be fully present in the moment.
That is an awesome story. Mark’s story also got us to thinking. One of the most influential people in healthcare, the CEO of Aetna, gets it. He created a “cocktail” of therapies that worked for his unique situation. What about you and everyone else? Why not make the ingredients for a holistic health “cocktail” available to consumers? So we did.
Holistic Health requires an open-mindedness to look at therapies that 1) do no harm, 2) fit your Lifestyle and Beliefs, and 3) offer you a benefit.
Our Model
The HealthCare Too platform searches daily for discounts on a wide variety of items to help you develop your own “cocktail” for holistic health.
HealthCare Too scours the Web for articles that might provide you additional insights on therapies, spanning the spectrum from Acupuncture to Zen. We post those articles on our Blog. No one pays us a fee for articles. We select articles that (at least overall) reflect the guiding principals of HealthCare Too.
The HealthCare Too model is a holistic approach to health. We do nothing with surgeries or prescriptions (or conventional Western medical care in general). Medical conversations are best left to medical staff. Our focus is entirely on helping you find and secure your own holistic health “cocktail” that you can use every day.
We appreciate the value of surgery and pharmaceuticals but want to make more pathways available for your HealthCare Too.