The Company That Solved Health Care: How Serigraph Dramatically Reduced Skyrocketing Costs While Providing Better Care, and How Every Company Can Do the Same

by John Torinus Jr.

Even with new health-care policies, one thing is health-care costs will continue to rise dramatically. While individuals may get better coverage, businesses will have the same problem they've had for the last four decades. Health care, one of corporate America's largest expenses, is growing at double-digit rates, and nothing done in Washington will change that.But one medium-size company set out to tame the beast of rising health-care costs, employing best practices and cutting-edge ideas. The results have caused others to sit up and take notice. Serigraph, Inc., a Wisconsin-based manufacturer of decorative parts, and its chairman, John Torinus, did what Washington can't or won't reduce cost increases to less than 2 percent while improving the quality of health care for its employees. The implications for corporate America are staggering--the opportunity for genuine reform in an expense category that has been spiraling out of control.Serigraph began its initiative to control health-care costs in 2003, when its annual health-care bill was $5 million and another $750,000 was needed for the projected 15 percent annual increase. The company employed three strategies for reform, each of which can cut the health-care bill by 20 percent to 40 percent--consumer responsibility, the primacy of primary over specialty care and centers of value. Applied in concert with other management methods, these three approaches almost eliminated growth in health-care costs while improving the quality of employee care. The results are documented. They are beyond refute. The Company That Solved Health Care describes the fascinating details of Serigraph's program, and shows how any company can achieve similar results. This book is essential reading for any manager responsible for his or her company's health-care expenses, any academic or thinker involved in the health-care debate and anyone who wants to better understand why health-care costs have been rising and what can be done to achieve price stability while improving patient care.

Genres: Health Care, Business, Nonfiction

176 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 5, 2010

Reviews

[Matthew Griffith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for every employee benefits professional and benefit plan decision maker. It provides valuable insights on implementing or improving consumer driven health plans. Many times when reading this book, I realized how myself and other benefit decision makers in my company gave fallen short in our addition of this type of health plan by not providing our employees with enough tools and incentives to take advantage of this type of health plan.
Even if you only do not take away any of the advice Torinus gives, it is thought provoking on how employeers can change health plans to be more beneficial for the health of the company and individual employees.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

References are starting to date a bit i.e. ACA commentary. Overall principles of behavior change when it comes to consumerism still apply. Direct and actionable, good for smaller enterprise organizations trying to understand the levers available to them to impact their healthcare business.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read as someone who works as an employee benefits professional. Slightly outdated, however, as this book came out prior to healthcare reform. Would love to see this company provide an update since then!

[Daniel Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting story of a company in Wisconsin that made their health care more consumer driven to reduce costs. The ideas discussed seems transferable to any sized company to help reduce costs and provide better care. They also focus on how shifting costs from one part to another is not helpful, but we have to reduce the cost for everyone.

[Melsene G · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a can do book on how one private sector company got its healthcare costs under control. The author is the CEO of Serigraph in Wisconsin and takes you step by step, chapter by chapter on his company's journey in reducing health care costs, which continue to skyrocket nationally. It's nice to read a book where the author makes the case for individual responsibility, and free market economics, not top down government fiat. Many of the ideas implemented by Serigraph make sense and should be modeled by others.

Here are some of his ideas that work: let consumers drive the plan and take ownership of their health, fight for price transparency, use lean principles, emphasize primary care, educate employees and lead them to centers of value, use medical tourism, annual physicals-free of charge, use generic drugs, etc. Costs can be cut-government needs to get out of the way. The health care law of 2010 was about insurance reform and access, not about reducing the runaway costs of healthcare-this can't be stated enough!

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read...if you're ever wondered why companies and consumers can't help control healthcare costs