Getting the most from your healthcare

There's a principle in naturopathic medicine, called the therapeutic order, that says you should use the lowest cost, least invasive interventions first, then, if those don't work, you escalate treatment. This is how I try to manage my clients too. We look at the cheapest and easiest way to resolve a health issue, then if that doesn't work we try something else.

James Maskell of kNew Health divides health care into four categories: Core, Coach, Community and Content.

Core Teams

Core teams, specialists and doctors, are necessary some of the time. But the reality is that a (private) specialist charging £200/hour for an appointment isn't great value if the initial treatment is a lifestyle change. The rise of health coaches in the last ten years is a great response to this, because it makes sense to employ a health coach who might charge you £50 for an appointment, rather than £200, and actually has more experience in helping people practically with lifestyle changes - as opposed the specialist who is very experienced at complicated and specialised disease management with expensive treatments.

In fact, we see this hierarchy already in the NHS, which is why they insist that you see your (cheaper) GP and need a referral before they will shell out cash for your (more expensive) consultant.

Health Coaches

A health coach is a great step before GP, who doesn't change your prescriptions or do anything invasive, but can look at lifestyle changes that might resolve your issues before you have to try any of that. In the UK, we have a false concept of value, because the NHS picks up the bill, but believe me, the cost is still there, it's just that the tax payer is now footing the bill.

In fact, coaches are generally much better at helping people to make lifestyle changes, and can spend more time helping you to put together an action plan for actually making those changes, than any doctor, who typically has about 10 minutes for your appointment (and that includes writing up notes after you leave the room) and can only give you the bare facts, rather than strategies. This is what I try to do with my clients. I give lifestyle changing advice, that hopefully helps enough that you don't need to see a doctor for drugs or more invasive therapies. If it doesn't work, the doctor is still there, but in 84% of patient cases lifestyle changes are more effective in improving their condition than drugs.

Community

Even more cost effective is community. That's why I created Restoration Health. I can tell you to exercise more, but the chances of you doing that aren't high, unless you are a very motivated person. By having a group who meet regularly to do a low impact cardio class, you're more likely to do it because of the social element.

I can ask you to research healthy habits, but by running a talk once a month where you meet other people who are doing the same, you can encourage each other and the element of competition ensures higher compliance rates than when I give you this information alone.

You can build your own communities too; these can cost a little money - like joining a sports club (I've personally loved the community at the British Military Fitness group and more recently my Jiu Jitsu club), or they can be free - taking part in the park run on Saturdays, getting a group of friends together and commit to walking together instead of having coffee one morning a week, deciding with a group of close friends that you are all going to cut out refined sugar for a month (it's a lot easier when you can go to someone's house and know that you are going to be able to cater for each other's dietary needs easily). Community gardens are also a great way to get encouragement in growing your own organic, fresh ingredients and cooking from scratch.

Content

Even less intervention (it doesn't impact your social life) is content. There's free content, like my blog, but it can be hard to evaluate everything on the internet, and let's face it, it's not always great. There's also paid content and books. These can be free (or cheap) if you ask your local library to order them in for you, or slightly more expensive if you purchase them yourself, but educating yourself is usually the beginning step to gaining better health.

In Summary...

1. Research your condition and decide what steps you need to take and try to make changes.

2. Try and build a community who encourage you to make those changes, if you are still not seeing improvements...

3. Employ the services of a health coach or holistic therapist to help with new ideas you may not of thought of and perhaps get extra insight on your condition or where to find better content.

4. If things still aren't improving, contact your GP for treatment and/or a referral to a specialist.

Most of the time you can resolve your issues with just step one or two, sometimes you need three. It should be rare to use step four.