Executive health programs offer
preventive care with a touch of class.
When Scott Reeder weighed his options five years ago, trimming down from a sluggish 255 pounds and lowering his unacceptable cholesterol and blood pressure levels became one of the most important executive decisions of his life.
Hundreds of treadmill miles were run and scores of skinless chicken breasts consumed on Reeder's low-fat, high-exercise weight-loss program before he reached his ideal weight of 185 pounds.
Seventy pounds lighter, Reeder, 58, president and general manager of Adalet, which makes electrical enclosures on Cleveland's West Side, says slimming down from a size 42 to 36 waist not only helped him feel better but made him a better manager.
'With any business that you manage, there's always issues that need to be addressed immediately and there's always a certain amount of stress,' Reeder says. 'I firmly believe that being in much better physical shape allows me to much better handle those issues. And we have been able to steadily improve the business every year — that includes even in the tough recession years that we have just gone through.'
Reeder says he was inspired by The Cleveland Clinic's Dr. Richard S. Lang, chairman of internal medicine and head of the hospital's Personal Health Management Program, which oversees more than 3,000 executive physicals a year for corporations around the world.
'Scott Fetzer [Co., Adalet's parent company] is really high on executive health programs, and that is one of the reasons why they have Dr. Lang on a fairly routine basis attend our annual presidents' meetings,' he says. 'Certainly, he was a strong influence in what I did.'
Reeder's experience, though dramatic, illustrates the type of success story Northeast Ohio corporations hope for when they offer executive health programs and physicals to their key leaders. And while the health benefits to such checkups can be vital, the perks — expedited service, executive lounges, hospital freebies — are nice, too.
As one of the larger programs in the country, the Clinic has offered comprehensive executive physicals for more than 30 years, Lang says.
'Originally, they grew from larger companies who looked at their executive group and [said], This is a very important resource to our companies. We invest a lot in these people and we don't want to lose people to illness or medical conditions that could have been prevented or could have been avoided,' ' Lang says.
'That spirit has really driven this kind of program over time,' he says. 'Most of the people we see are very busy individuals who may not take appropriate time for their health, and this may be the one time during the year that they see a physician and really take a look at things.'
Extra Benefits
So what really happens when the bigwigs go to the doctor? Well, there's nothing average about it — valet parking, complimentary fresh fruit and bagels, leather-backed chairs in the lounge where CNN keeps idle executives informed during a brief absence from the office.
First, whether an executive goes for a physical at the Clinic, University Hospitals' Executive Wellness Program in Chagrin Highlands or Summa Health System's Center for Corporate Health in Akron, they will be equally poked and prodded at each location.
And the best part? Well, there's quite a few. These high-powered leaders get the royal screening — blood work, electrocardiograms (EKGs), stress tests, hearing and vision exams, body composition tests — and counsel on lowering risk by eating well, exercising more, stressing less ... all in the same day.
'These executives are always on the run and they've got a lot of people competing for their time, and this is a way we can get one-stop shopping done and really get their attention and take care of everything all at once,' Lang says.
Once a physical is scheduled, most new executives are mailed a health questionnaire detailing family medical history, personal history and lifestyle issues.
University Hospitals, for example, mails a software package that includes a health risk inventory to its executives.
Dr. David Rosenberg, medical director of UH's Executive Wellness Program, says that after the physical the executive is mailed a 30-page booklet that analyzes how he compared to national norms, as well as test results and suggestions for lifestyle modifications or further testing.
UH, which annually sees about 100 executives in a program that is branching out to become more competitive with similar local programs, is perfecting the executive-oriented atmosphere.
'We're going to treat [executives] the way they want to be treated,' Rosenberg says. 'They are going to have access to us if they have a problem, day or night. If they are around the world and they have a problem, they can call us.'
UH greets its executive patients into a lounge — located in a building with easy freeway access — that has the atmosphere of a private practice. There, they can conduct business between exams on Internet-enabled computers, phones and fax machines, Rosenberg says.
Executives also enjoy complimentary, healthful breakfasts and lunches, but only after blood is drawn and fasting has ended.
Gone are the days of the drafty and all-too-revealing hospital gowns for the dapper executives, says Dr. Kenneth M. Cardlin, medical director of the Summa Center for Corporate Health, an affiliate of the Clinic's corporate health program.
'Instead of having them in a gown we try to make it a little classier, a little more comfortable for them so they don't have to be wandering around trying to keep their rear end from sticking out the back,' Cardlin says. 'We give them a sweat suit and they can keep the outfit as well.'
Gifts from the doctor? Oh yes. UH sends executives home with monogrammed scrubs; executives who go to the Clinic are given collared golf shirts with The Cleveland Clinic name stitched on them as well as khaki-colored scrub pants. This sporty outfit not only makes for a nice souvenir but serves a purpose: Men and women wearing this outfit get ultra-speedy service when they have to go to other areas of the Clinic campus for additional testing.
Protecting Your Investments
Four years ago, 20 Cleveland executives from Lincoln Electric Co. began heading to UH for annual checkups, says Tony Massaro, Lincoln's chairman and CEO.
'I believe in these things,' says Massaro, 58, who has seen people learn of life-threatening conditions during physicals early enough for effective treatment.
'I think it sends a message to the executives that we care about their health and that we care about their longevity with the corporation because they are important investments that the company has made,' Massaro says. 'We'd like to keep them healthy and happy so they can be here a while.'
And as expected, these jaunts to top clinicians do not come cheaply.
A standard executive physical costs an average of $2,000, though the more specialized tests such as colonoscopies, stress tests and body scans can boost the bill to $8,000 or more.
'Historically and still, for the majority of the individuals this is paid for outside of insurance mechanisms,' Lang says. 'It's paid for by the individual company or by the individual because it's like a life insurance policy. It's an elective thing that companies are looking for to maintain the health of their key individuals.'
Of course, if any health problems are found during an in-depth physical that require further testing or intervention, health insurance policies then generally kick in and start to cover some of the resulting costs.
For Mike Gleason, president of Austin Powder Co. in Cleveland, the $50,000 to $100,000 his company spends each year for its 40 executives to be examined is money well spent.
'It's been a good investment. It has helped us keep people productive. It has helped keep folks loyal, and I think it has probably lowered our medical costs,' Gleason says about the company's mandatory program sending its executives to The Cleveland Clinic. 'We've had three guys who have had polyps removed that left unattended might have developed into colon cancer.'
At Austin Powder, which operates in 15 countries, executives under age 50 go for a physical every other year; those 50 and older go annually.
'Our executives come from around the U.S. and around the world — some of these guys come from Central and South America and Eastern Europe — and they often don't have access to high-quality health care and they do when they come here, so they are really excited about coming to the Clinic,' he says.
As medicine and diagnostic tests have become fine-tuned over the years, so has the approach to executive physicals, Cardlin says.
'In the olden days [the 1970s] they used to do the old shotgun approach, where we used to do everything on everybody with the idea that it is easy enough to do this and we'll find things,' he says. 'Now they are very scientific about it; it's all based on what we call evidence-based medicine, so we tailor [the testing] so that you are doing something that has a meaning; it's not a waste of money or time.'
Prevention is the number one goal of corporate physicals, Cardlin says.
'Years ago, our job was to fix what was broken; now, we see our job as to prevent it from getting broken in the first place,' he says. 'It's always easier to prevent it from getting broken than it is to fix it.'
Ken Semelsberger, CEO of Scott Fetzer Co., headquartered in Westlake, couldn't echo that sentiment enough.
For more than 20 years, Semelsberger has gone to the Clinic for his executive physical — first as a division president and now as a CEO who continues to offer the health benefit to his 26 top leaders and presidents.
'I am a firm believer if you're an athlete on the field and you don't feel good and you're not in good shape, you're not going to perform,' Semelsberger says. 'And if you're an executive in business, and you're not in good shape and you don't feel good and you don't have that energy, you're simply not going to perform as well as someone who does. If I have presidents that feel good and feel energetic and are in good health, I just think that the performance is going to be much greater.'
Semelsberger, 66, promotes a healthful lifestyle to his employees not only through policies but by example, working out three to four times a week.
'The physical is hopefully to give you an early warning heads up on it; it's not that everybody who takes a physical is going to be in peak health and feeling great,' he says. 'But it gives you a heads up early enough so that you can take care of something before it becomes a problem.'
Success Stories
Take Brian Parsell, 56, president of Brennan and Howard Inc., a manufacturers representative based in Akron.
With a family history of heart disease, he received a recommendation during his executive physical at Summa to see his cardiologist.
Although Parsell had no symptoms of tightness or chest pain, a stress test revealed a Y-shaped blockage in his heart that required angioplasty with three stents.
'I attribute that happening and preventing a future problem based on going for these physicals and again with the doctors being thorough,' Parsell says. 'So I'm a big believer in [executive health programs].'
Or how about Carl Smeller, president and COO of Buckeye Corrugated Inc., also in Akron, who discovered during an executive physical that he had a birth defect in his heart.
Just shy of his 60th birthday late last year, Smeller was told by doctors at Summa — after intensive testing — that a blood vessel from his lung is attached to the wrong side of his heart.
'One side of my heart gets a little bit bigger every time they check me,' Smeller says. 'It functions fine with the exception that sometimes it starts to beat funny. It's just something that bears watching in the future, but [diagnosing the condition] was a direct result of these physicals.'
For the lucky executives, there is nothing that beats the sense of relief that accompanies a clean bill of health at the end of the day once the executive has likely showered in the locker room and is sitting in the lounge with the physician to discuss results.
'It tells me that all of that exercise that I did for the past year and watching
what I did paid off, because they confirmed that the program is working,' Massaro
says, adding that he spends close to an hour a day working out, including a
couple miles on the treadmill. 'In the types of jobs that we have, with the
amount of travel and stress and everything, if you don't take care of yourself
you are going to end up in trouble.'