Special Treatment for Top Executives
By LAURENCE DARMIENTO
Staff Reporter
Alan Kaye just received the kind of physical most patients only dream about.
After submitting an eight-page medical history, the Mattel Inc. executive was treated to a leisurely discussion of his medical background with a UCLA internist. After that, he was led to a traditional examination in a room appointed with marble countertops and original artwork.
Then the executive was assigned a personal liaison who escorted him through a battery of sophisticated tests over two days, administered by UCLA specialists.
“It was a phenomenal experience,” recalls Kaye, 49, senior vice president for human resources at Mattel. “It was definitely the kid-glove treatment.”
It better had been. At a time when most patients are lucky to get 10 minutes with a doctor, employers have been shelling out $2,000 to $3,000 a pop to send their top executives to red-carpet medical screenings from top medical facilities.
Corporations want to utilize the latest medical technology to get some assurance that their top executives won’t be felled by a sudden illness. Medical centers don’t make much money on the programs, but they help cement ties with potential corporate donors.
“What you do is make money on the back end,” said Dr. Benjamin Ansell, medical director of UCLA’s Comprehensive Health Program.
In just the last two months, UCLA opened a dedicated suite for its year-old program in a campus medical office building. USC opened an even more luxurious center in a downtown skyscraper, outfitted with fine furniture, a concierge and spa-like amenities. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center started its program a year ago, though it does not have a dedicated center.
“We are just filling a niche,” says Dr. John Broadhead, medical director of the USC program and former chief of staff at USC University Hospital. “These executives want the most comprehensive exam in the shortest possible time.”
Widening care gap
Still, at a time when executive compensation plans are under fire in many quarters, the plans could be considered excessive.
“This is about executives getting fancy embellishments on basic health care when in California many companies fail to provide health coverage to their employees and dependents,” said Beth Capell of Health Access, an Oakland-based nonprofit.
Ansell admitted that most companies using UCLA’s service did not want their names released.
UCLA and USC have been offering this type of gilded treatment informally for years, but generally it’s been available just to top university administrators and major donors. Some corporate executives and movie stars also have had access to it as well.
The universities decided to establish formal programs at the request of top donors and corporations. Other executive health centers have begun springing up, modeled after the original program pioneered by the Mayo Clinic some 30 years ago.
“There has been increasing interest in the past six or seven years,” says Dr. Donald Hensrud, director of the Mayo’s program in Rochester, Minn. “Anecdotally many of us are hearing it is more challenging to get in and see your local physician and there are longer waits to see sub-specialists. And time is money for an executive.”
Medical officials at both USC and UCLA developed their programs after visits to the Mayo Clinic.
UCLA was able to build its center after receiving a seven-figure donation from the Leslie and Susan Gonda (Goldschmeid) Foundation. USC will not say how much it spent on its center.
The programs combine personalized attention from an “executive physician” with a broad range of testing and consultations performed by specialists, which at top academic medical centers could mean a leading figure in a field. “This is about you seeing a breast surgeon for a breast exam when you don’t have breast cancer,” Ansell said.
The testing provided is often the most sophisticated around, whether it’s high-resolution CT scans for detecting arterial plaque, a sign of heart disease, or PET scans for detecting cancerous growths. Other tests include heart stress tests, colonoscopies, bone density exams and a test of pulmonary function.
The executives also get counseling on how to lead a healthier lifestyle, from exercise to eating habits to stress management. Results are given in a bound notebook and include an “executive summary.” If executives need transportation, town cars are arranged.
Both Cedars and UCLA assign executives a personal assistant who walks the executive through the hallways to their tests.
Under USC’s model, the various specialists come to the executive, who stays put in a large exam room that feels more like a hotel room, with plants, a mini-waterfall and luxurious terrycloth robes and slippers.
Executives can plug in their laptop during any spare time at a work area, which features burnished wood writing tablets, a wrought-iron antique globe and a silver breakfast tray for whatever nibbles the executive might want after fasting blood tests are completed.
“It was perfect,” said Ed Roski Jr., chief executive of Majestic Realty Co. and a USC trustee who had a screening at the center a few weeks ago. “I just sat there and they came to me. Bam. Bam. Bam.”
At UCLA, Ansell said a conscious decision was made to offer more of a “medical” model. It has already signed contracts with 20 corporations. USC also wants to get a share of that business, but is seeking a core of business from executives based in or near downtown.
Lee Exton, a vice president at the Los Angeles office of Segal, a benefits consulting firm, said executive health programs can make sense economically, by discovering serious or life-threatening health problems among valuable executives.
And Kaye who by the way received a clean bill of health defended Mattel’s decision to offer the benefits to executives at the vice president level and above.
“There are individuals who are under constant employment stress,” he said. “They work 18 hours a day. They travel constantly. Our concern is we want to make sure they are OK to keep on producing.”
