Avoid a stroke in just 10 minutes! Detect osteoporosis in just 60 seconds!
According to the folks at Life Line Screening in Cleveland, Ohio, these are no smoke and mirror promises, but practical precautions any health-conscious person and at-risk individual would want to protect her or his health.
In an increasingly consumer-driven era of health care, such advertisements are becoming less the exception and more the rule as companies armed with cutting-edge technology seek to capitalize on consumers’ need to know (and curiosity) by providing medical tests at a fraction of what it would cost in more traditional settings.
In December, after advertising with inserts in local newspapers, Life Line Screening held vascular screening and osteoporosis clinics via a traveling company van at St. Francis Parish Hall in Wakefield and in November at the Neighborhood Guild in Peace Dale.
Clinics are scheduled next month in Rhode Island at churches in Westerly, Cumberland, Bristol and Newport and in March at a church in Riverside.
It’s all part of a “very aggressive roll-out plan” that will add 15 more states this year to the 29 the company already covers, said Lynette Koenig, assistant vice president of sales and marketing at Life Line, which held 556 screening clinics across the country in December alone.
Koenig said Life Line is the largest mobile health risk screening service in the United States, and while it wasn’t the first, most of its competitors are local and no company comes close in terms of size and scope.
Its 29 vans provide non-invasive and painless tests at a fraction of the hospital price using Ultrasound and Doppler technology and technicians certified through the American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers. “All of our employees are registered or registry eligible,” Koenig said, following the “same criteria a hospital staff has to adhere to.”
Life Line Screening currently offers a carotid vascular test that visualizes the build-up of fatty plaques in carotid arteries through ultrasound technology; an abdominal aortic aneurysm screening that detects an aneurysm or enlargement in the abdominal aorta through ultrasound visualization; an ankle brachial index that screens for peripheral arterial disease in the lower extremities using ultrasound technology; and an osteoporosis screening that detects abnormal bone mass density, which may suggest a risk of osteoporosis.
Ultrasound vascular tests can cost from $300 to $500 if performed in a hospital or clinical setting, Koenig said, but by using mobile technology and performing volume screenings they’re able to charge only $35 per test — $10 off if you sign up for all three.
The quoted cost last week for a carotid ultrasound test at Tollgate Radiology in Warwick was $359, and about $175 for an abdominal aortic aneurysm test.
“We’re not brick and mortar. We don’t have a hospital staff” or the overhead that comes with it, Koenig said. The company currently employs nearly 300.
A board certified physician reviews all screening results, which are returned to customers by mail within 12 to 15 business days if there’s a problem or abnormality, Koenig said.
“Our mission is to make people aware of the existence of undetected health problems and seek follow-up care,” Koenig said, and “not operate outside of the patient/physician relationship.”
So far, she said, Life Line has screened more than 600,000 people across the country since 1993.
Since Life Line Screening is a privately held company she chose not to disclose its revenues, but said the company has grown “more than 300 percent in the last year.”
While their target market is age 45 and above, Koenig said so far the “most responsive group” has been folks in their early 60s.
She said many insurance providers are interested in the company as an option for “wellness plans,” where patients are given lump sums to purchase preventive health care services.
“Also employers are starting to look at us” to provide on-site screenings, Koenig said, because of the “significant costs of health care.” Life Line’s corporate accounts include Whirlpool Corporation, Raytheon Systems in St. Petersburg, Fla., Florida’s Natural Growers, Daimler Chrysler and “lots of labor unions” including the Iron Workers Local in Orlando, the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local in Evansville, Ind. and the United Auto Workers Local in Grand Blank, Mich.
Consumers, be aware
While Life Line Screening was news to many queried on the subject in Rhode
Island, the general attitude was that such tests were fine for the health-savvy
consumer, although one’s doctor should definitely be involved.
“It seems mercenary,” said Rhode Island Hospital cardiologist Frederic Christian, M.D., head of the R.I. Chapter of the American College of Cardiology, upon first hearing of the company and the notion of medical tests marketed directly to consumers.
As he called up the company’s Web site at www.lifelinescreening.com and scanned the list of services, Dr. Christian said the screenings were “pretty simple, standard tests,” the same ultrasound technology “that doctors order every day.”
Dr. Christian said these types of tests are useful to detect disease early and even reduce deaths, and if an abnormality is found “that would be a wakeup call” to an individual to cut out high risk behaviors like fatty diet and smoking.
“But you should do those things anyway without the test,” Dr. Christian said. “It doesn’t substitute for healthy living.”
Dr. Christian said while “there’s no harm in having any of these done,” the screenings “shouldn’t be done in a vacuum,” even “in this age of consumerism, (when) people like to do things on their own.”
He said if these tests were covered by insurance “it would increase the cost of health plans absolutely.”
Brian Jordan, director of legislative affairs at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, said the company usually doesn’t cover screenings unless it’s a “medical necessity,” ordered by a doctor, for while a test may detect a problem in one person, there will be 20 others in which no risk will be revealed. “The feeling is it doesn’t really alter the outcome,” Jordan said.
Koenig said stroke is the Number 3 killer in the United States, is also the most expensive in terms of dollars spent for care, treatment and rehabilitation, and up to half of all strokes occur in people who have no symptoms.
She said because their tests screen for health conditions and diseases that often don’t present any obvious symptoms, it allows consumers to take an active role in the management of their own health care and disease prevention.
“It’s important to note that we can’t prevent all types but (we can) let people know if they’re at risk for the more common types,” Koenig said.
“We believe that consumers certainly have the right to have tests done,” said Molly Mettler, senior vice president of the consumer information organization Healthwise Inc. and chair-elect for the National Council on the Aging.
But it’s also the “responsibility of consumers to work in partnership with a physician,” Mettler said. She added that consumers need to consider not only whether they need a screening test but how to make sure the company is reputable, and figure out “what they’ll do with the information once they get it.”
