Michigan Primary Care Consortium Report Identifies Dramatic Negative Effects of Failure to Immunize on Patients, Pocketbooks
What does a vehicle owner do to prevent engine failure? To keep the vehicle on the road? To prevent it from being a danger to others? If you answer Oil Change, use good gas, have decent tires, and maintain the steering and braking systems, you have an idea of what it takes to keep your ride healthy, and minimize cost of repair later in its life.
What if those principles were applied to ourselves?
LANSING, MI— The Michigan Primary Care Consortium (mpcc) today released a startling new report examining the effect on the state’s economy of failure to fully immunize Michigan adults against preventable infectious diseases like pneumonia and influenza. The report, titled: “The Business Case for Full Adult Immunization in Michigan,” uncovered nearly $495 million in annual economic costs in Michigan associated with failure to immunize, from emergency room visits and specialty medical care to lost productivity, absenteeism and related costs.
The report found that for every dollar spent on adult immunizations, nearly twenty dollars are saved in the workplace and on hospital stays, physician visits, and other more expensive and lengthy treatments for patients who have contracted diseases that would have been easily prevented with simple, low-cost vaccinations.
“Failure to fully immunize Michigan adults has a staggering impact on Michigan job makers and the state’s economy,” said Joseph Fortuna, M.D., Vice-Chairman of the Michigan Primary Care Consortium (MPCC). “Vaccine-preventable diseases like pneumonia and the flu continue to ravage adults across the state, resulting in the need for expensive treatments and hospital visits while driving down workplace productivity. Adult immunizations can save lives and boost the economy, but only if they are used.”
Failure to fully immunize Michigan adults against vaccine-preventable diseases impacts the state’s economy in a number of ways. According to the report:
- Direct costs including otherwise unnecessary emergency room and physician visits across the state amount to over $245 million annually;
- Lost productivity on the job, missed work days and other indirect costs account for nearly $250 million each year in Michigan;
- For every dollar spent on adult immunizations, $18.40 in preventable economic costs is saved;
- Adults are 100 times more likely than children to die of vaccine-preventable diseases; and
- Nationwide each year, vaccine-preventable diseases claim the lives of 50,000 adults and cause untold and incalculable human suffering and pain.
The report was unveiled this morning in Lansing at the MPCC’s “Second Plenary Session on Adult Immunization” as nearly 100 physicians, health care professionals, business and industry leaders and government officials from across the state gathered to participate in facilitated work groups with the goal of developing plans to overcome barriers to full adult immunization.
“These very real economic- and more importantly, human- costs remind us of the importance of getting ourselves and our loved ones immunized, of insuring continued access to recommended vaccines and of bringing new immunizations to the market as soon as safely possible,” said Jeffrey D. Brasie, M.A., Executive Director of the MPCC. “Adult immunizations are every bit as important as childhood vaccinations and something physicians, health care professionals and policymakers in Lansing should clearly make a priority.”
The MPCC is a non-profit organization comprised of health providers, insurers and payers, business and industry, government entities including the Michigan Department of Community Health, and academic institutions focused on improving Michigan’s primary care. The organization’s collaborative mission has a strong focus on wellness and preventative care.
For more information about the MPCC and adult immunizations, please visit http://www.mipcc.org.
Preventive maintenance might be the best way to stave off the effects what will be a declining number of physicians in the future. Government has interfered to a point where the desire to enter the profession does not meet the rewards, so the best way to avoid wait times, high costs, and the inability of the sector to provide relief would be to not require the relief.
Don’t get sick.
