WellMax is a company with a philosophy

• One’s individual health is priceless.

  
  
• “Medically necessary” is an economic term. It is a slippery phrase often used by insurance companies or Medicare to diminish overall costs. These choices are often not in the best interest of the individual. 

  
  
• Early detection of disease is possible.
  
  
• It is not necessary to “turn up” with advanced heart disease or most cancer types. The “surprise” of a fatal disease is often avoidable.
  
  
• Most cancer can be virtually cured if detected in its earliest stages, before symptoms. Most cancers have a terrible prognosis (i.e. you will probably die) if detected in later stages. (Breast cancer, ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, and colon cancer are all deadly if detected in late stages and all are over 90% curable if detected early.)


1. Most people are not accessing the lifesaving technology that could be available to them to detect accelerated heart disease processes even prior to “disease”, and to intervene early.
   
   
2. Nearly all cancer types are not discovered until late stages because most cancer is detected in response to symptoms.
   
   
3. Most healthcare is provided reactively, i.e. in response to symptoms. Insurance pays for reactive care. With few exceptions (e.g. colonoscopy) insurance does not pay for screening tests. They’re not considered “medically necessary.“
   
   
4. Insurance, as a concept, is providing for costs arising from unexpected events. If you sign up for the Auto Club insurance, they will tow your car if it breaks down. You wouldn’t expect the Auto Club to pay for new tires or a tune up. But in healthcare, “third party payment” has become so dominant that patients and most doctors behave as if the only relevant tests are those tests that insurance companies will pay for.
   
   
5. The vast majority of doctors are paid by insurance companies for their service. And doctors want to be egalitarian: they want to treat all patients the same. It feels uncomfortable to tell a poor woman that a breast MRI would be helpful but she must pay at least $1000. So the doctor remains silent, even before other women who could easily pay for it. And various “academies” proclaim what is appropriate with an explicit factoring of what is “cost-effective.”
   
   
6. Now that the federal government and others have proclaimed that healthcare is a “right” (which translates into mandating that government should pay for it), and thus all “medically necessary” care must be provided and paid for, there is an increasing huge economic pressure to minimize that which is “medically necessary.” As Obamacare progresses, you will increasingly hear --- usually from a source like USPTF (United States Preventive Task Force) --- that “less is more”: that mammograms, pap smears, CT scans, even PSA tests are “not worth it!” (The recent proclamation that mammograms are not needed over age 40yo rapidly led to California denying coverage for them. The state representative said “budget constraints” led them to rapidly adopt the recommendation.)
   
   
7. Side air bags: an example of some people getting better protection than others. If you get a side impact from an SUV, your risk of death (or that of your passenger on the side that is hit) is decreased 45% if side airbags are present. It is irrefutable that side airbags are safer: they save lives. In the 1990s, side airbags were available in the BMW and Volvo (Yuppie cars!) only. Each year, more cars have side airbags standard. Guess which cars have them, and which don’t? Do rich people deserve to live because they can afford cars with side airbags? Well, while you ponder that moral question, we can agree on this: if the carmaker or your insurance company must pay for the additional cost of airbags, you will be told how unnecessary they are. 


1. Optimizing one’s individual health is a process, not an event. After a patient has an initial evaluation, he or she needs to partner for ongoing management and optimization of health. Improved health doesn’t come from the measurements, but from doing something about the results. 


1. You must be in charge of your healthcare. There may have once been a time in which you could completely depend upon your doctor to inform you if a screening test could benefit you. Now, with many specialists and emerging technology, and your unique set of genes, and your unique risk tolerance, you cannot abdicate responsibility. You have to get involved. That’s why WellMax has set up the Personal Health Portfolio®, so you can monitor your screening tests, and the response to those tests. You have control over your medical records, and you participate in the decision-making. 


1. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Medical studies may report that a single risk factor, such as elevated cholesterol, provides a certain average risk increase. But a given individual has his or her unique structural data, functional information, blood test markers, personal history, family history, genetic make-up, and more. Combining this information uniquely predicts an individual’s risk unlike any single test. WellMax is now collaborating with database management and analysis experts to combine information and learn even more.
   

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