Wellness Works? Prove It--and Win $$$

The reward for showing your wellness program works is now $3 million!

As almost everyone in the wellness industry knows, we have offered a $2 million reward to anyone who can show that conventional annual “pry, poke and prod” wellness saves money. I’m feeling very generous today, so let’s make the reward $3 million. Even more importantly, let’s loosen the rules — a lot —  to encourage applicants. You’ll find the $3 million reward is not just more generous but also far easier to claim than the previous $2 million reward. Loosening the Rules Except as indicated below, the rules stay the same as in the previous posting, but with the following relaxed standards. Most importantly, I’ll now accept the burden of persuasion. It is my job to convince the panel of judges, using the standard civil level of proof, that you are wrong, as opposed to you having to convince them that I am wrong. Next, let’s expand the pool from which the judges can be drawn. It wasn’t very nice of me to allow you to choose from only the 300 people on Peter Grant’s exclusive healthcare policy listserve, because obviously no one invited into a legitimate healthcare policy listserve thinks wellness saves money. See also: Should Wellness Carry a Warning Label?   In addition, you can also choose among the 100-plus people on Dave Chase’s email list and the 70 people on the Ethical Wellness email list. (www.ethicalwellness.org)  To make things totally objective, we will add as judges whatever two bloggers happen to be the leading dedicated lay U.S. healthcare economic policy bloggers at the time of the application for the award, as measured by the ratio of Twitter followers-to-Twitter-following, with a minimum of 15,000 followers. So judges are chosen as follows: two bloggers chosen by objective formula, plus we each choose six people from among the other 460, with the other party having veto rights for five of them. That gives a total of four judges, who will choose a fifth from among those roughly 500 people. The original rules included the requirement of defending Wellsteps’ Koop Award.  After all, the best vendor should be exemplary, right? A beacon for others to follow? A benchmark to show what’s possible when the best and brightest make employees happy and healthy? However, now you have another option. You could instead just publicly acknowledge that the Koop Award committee is either corrupt or incompetent, as you prefer, because that possibility cannot be ruled out as a logical explanation for Wellsteps winning that award. Your choice…. Next, you may bring as many experts with you to address the adjudication forum as you wish to bring. I, on the other hand, will be limited to myself. Further, you no longer have to defend the proposition that wellness as a whole has saved money. You can, if you prefer, simply acknowledge that most of it has failed…except you. Meaning that, if you are a vendor that has been “profiled” on this site in the last two years, you can limit your defense to your own specific results. You don’t have to defend the swamp. That new loophole allows companies like Interactive Health, Fitbit, Wellness Corporate Solutions, etc. — and especially Wellsteps — to get rich…if what I have said specifically about them is wrong. I have $3 million that says it isn’t. Special Offer for HERO Ah, yes, the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO). The belly of the beast. Let me make them a special offer. Paul Terry, the current HERO Prevaricator-in-Chief, has accused me of the following  (if you link, you’ll see they had enough sense not to use my name, likely on advice of counsel, given that I already almost sued them after they circulated their poison pen letter to the media): I’m convinced responding to bloggers who show disdain for our field is an utter waste of time. I’ve rarely been persuaded to respond to bloggers [Editors note, in HERO-speak, “rarely” means “never” — except for that intercepted Zimmerman Telegram-like missive], and each time I did it affirmed my worry that, more than a waste, it’s counter-productive. That’s because they’ll not only incessantly recycle their original misstatements, but worse, they’ll misrepresent your response and use it as fodder for more disinformation.* Tell ya what, Paul. let’s debate disinformation, including your letter. Aside from the standard 10% entry fee (used to pay the judges honoraria, reserve the venue and compensate me for wasting my time with your THC-infused quixotry), all the economic burden falls on me. The only catch: I have asked you on multiple occasions to clue me in as to what my alleged disinformation actually is, if any. That way, I can publicly apologize and fix it, should I choose to do so.  Before applying for this award, you need to disclose this alleged disinformation. You can’t just go around saying my information is made up, etc. without specifying what it is. By definition, “disinformation” is deliberate misrepresentation. To my knowledge, as a member of the “integrity segment” of the wellness industry, I have never, and would never, spread disinformation. On the other hand, if I did spread inadvertently incorrect information by mistake, it seems only fair to let me fix it — especially given that I have been totally transparent and generous with my time in explaining to you what yours is, and how to correct it. (I might have missed some. Keeping up with yours is a challenge of Whack-a-Mole-meets-White-House-press-correspondent proportions.) See also: Wellness Vendors Keep Dreaming   So perhaps it is time to man up, Mr. Terry.  You and your cronies claim to have been collecting my “disinformation” for years, without disclosing any of it. I’m offering you a public forum and $3 million to present it. Otherwise, perhaps you should, in the immortal word(s) of the great philosopher Moe Howard, shaddap. A couple other mid-course corrections to the previous award offer.  Someone wondered if this offer is legally binding, so if your attorney’s knowledge of contract law matches your knowledge of wellness economics, they can voice their likely spurious objection. I will publish the objection and address it if need be, to make the reward a binding offer. Another commenter whined that maybe I just won’t pay the reward. I’m sure that’s the reason no one has applied. (Not.) So, put 10% of the entry fee down, and I’ll attach a lien.