How Pivio works

Pivio solutions substantially reduce healthcare claims costs and improve engagement and productivity for its partners:

Health Plans/Payers
Health Systems
Employers
ACOs/Primary Care Providers

Achieve savings in the best way imaginable: by helping those with costly, chronic illnesses transform their health.

The principle behind Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s solutions–Pivio and Pivio Now–is simple: If people stay well, healthcare costs stay low.

A powerful catalyst for behavior change.

Lifestyle Medicine Institute offers two solutions–Pivio and Pivio Now–providing an immersive ecosystem of learning and support resources, focusing on the six key pillars of lifestyle medicine.

Group sessions (with the Pivio solution) or one-to-one sessions (with the Pivio Now solution) facilitated by trained coaches
User-friendly web application that serves as a hub and guides participants through the program
Edutainment-style video content to teach participants how to apply lifestyle medicine to their daily lives and build lasting, healthy habits
Journal to track progress and reflect on the journey toward better health
Cookbook and online meal planner with thousands of healthy, nutritious recipes
Educational materials (such as articles, fact sheets, and “explainer” videos) on topics related to lifestyle changes and healthy living

Offering flexibility with two lifestyle medicine solutions.

The only difference between Pivio and Pivio Now is how the program is delivered to participants. With Pivio, Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s flagship solution, participants are part of a cohort, participating in group sessions over their 12 week program. Pivio Now is also a 12-week program, though during that time, participants are on a self-guided journey a meet with a coach, one on one.

Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s client partners receive a full turn-key solution:

Administrative and operational support for implementation
Marketing and communications tools to promote Pivio in your organization
Billing support leveraging reimbursement codes
Training for your facilitator or the option to use an LMI-trained facilitator

The Pivio experience

Proven to improve health

Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s solutions address the root cause of chronic disease: lifestyle choices. Lifestyle Medicine Institute is built on the foundation of the Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP), which is scientifically proven to prevent, treat, and reverse chronic disease through lifestyle changes. More than 40 peer-reviewed research papers document its effectiveness.

By changing their lifestyles, participants get healthy—and stay healthy. Four years after starting a lifestyle medicine program from Lifestyle Medicine Institute, the majority continue to show improvements in biometric markers.

For many participants, the program is a turning point. It empowers them to take charge of the way they live and reclaim their health. Most find the results so transforming, they stick with it for the long term—adopting it as a way of life.

Over three decades, Lifestyle Medicine Institute has helped tens of thousands of participants worldwide to regain health and vitality.

What it’s like to be a Pivio or Pivio Now participant

In 2020, Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s lifestyle medicine program was the first to earn the Certified Lifestyle Medicine Program designation from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine.

How lifestyle affects healthcare costs

Chronic diseases account for more than 80% of all health care costs.

For every $1 an organization spends on a Lifestyle Medicine Institute lifestyle medicine program, it saves $2 in health claims costs.

SELF-INSURED EMPLOYERS SAVE ON HEALTHCARE CLAIM COSTS

If your organization assumes financial risk for the medical and prescription drug benefits it provides to employees, it will lower that risk by deploying Pivio or Pivio Now.

Reduced health claim costs

Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s solutions can lower your organization’s expenses for medical and pharmacy claims. It helps employees with chronic illness—and those whose lifestyles place them at high risk of illness—to reduce their need for medical care and prescription medications. As their health improves, claims decrease.

Higher productivity

By preventing, treating, or even reversing disease, Pivio and Pivio Now make employees more productive. They take fewer sick days. Simply put, they get more done, which helps the organization’s bottom line.

Elevated morale

There are other benefits, too—assets that don’t show up on the balance sheet. Often program participants become fiercely loyal to the organization that offered them the program. Their loyalty is an expression of gratitude for the gift of restored health.

HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS LOWER COSTS AND SUPPORT HEALTHIER COMMUNITIES

Networks of clinics and hospitals that adopt Pivio or Pivio Now strengthen the health of both employees and patients.

Reduced per-patient costs

For health care systems with risk-based payment models—those with a fixed per-patient budget—Pivio or Pivio Now is an ideal solution to manage and keep utilization costs down. As chronically ill patients achieve better health through lifestyle changes, they need less medical care.

Reputation-building results

Because lifestyle medicine programs from Lifestyle Medicine Institute work so well in preventing, treating, and reversing chronic disease, healthcare systems that adopt them gain a reputation for achieving the best possible patient outcomes.

Community connections

Pivio brings people together. Patients and employees who take part in the program forge close bonds as they support one another’s achievements.

PHYSICIANS ACHIEVE GOALS IN PATIENTS’ PLANS OF CARE

As a physician, Pivio or Pivio Now can help you optimize patient outcomes by addressing lifestyle issues that underlie many chronic illnesses.

Effective treatment

Pharmacological solutions to chronic disease are costly, have many side effects and often can fail to yield the desired clinical results. Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s solutions set patients on the road to better health and wellbeing by addressing the root cause of chronic disease–lifestyle.

Easy to implement

Lifestyle Medicine Institute offers turnkey solutions that are easy to integrate into your practice. You can simply refer patients and monitor their progress at appointments.

After you become a partner

As a Lifestyle Medicine Institute partner, your organization can realize savings on healthcare costs within months. Participants see cost savings, too. Lifestyle Medicine Institute works with you to scale the program to the ideal size, so your organization will see the greatest possible financial and clinical benefit.

Your Lifestyle Medicine Institute client solutions and engagement manager supports your organization.

Your client solutions and engagement manager is dedicated to helping you launch and run your program successfully. They will guide you in reaching out to individuals who could benefit the most from participation.

They will team up with you to set program goals and strategies, implement the program, and provide ongoing operational and marketing support to help you build awareness of the program within your organization and recruit and enroll participants.

You and Lifestyle Medicine Institute together determine who should be your program’s qualified facilitator.

For the cohort-based program, the facilitator organizes and runs the group sessions for program participants. Lifestyle Medicine Institute will train and certify an individual within your organization to run the program. Alternatively, Lifestyle Medicine Institute can provide a trained and certified facilitator.

Lifestyle Medicine Institute teaches facilitators about lifestyle medicine and provides techniques to keep participants engaged and advancing toward their goals.

Each participant completes health status assessments and biometric testing within the first week of the program.

Initial assessments and bloodwork provide a baseline measurement of each participant’s health status. Among values tested are the following:

Total, HDL (Total to HDL ratio), and LDL cholesterol
Triglycerides
Fasting plasma glucose
Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c)
C-reactive protein
Blood pressure
Resting heart rate
Weight
Waist circumference
Body mass index (BMI)

Results of biometric tests and an accompanying health status assessment identify areas where participants need to focus their efforts to improve their health.

Participants begin their journey.

For the cohort-based Pivio solution, participants meet every week—for a total of 12 weeks and 18 sessions—as a group with a facilitator. With the self-guided Pivio Now solution, participants also follow a 12-week program, though it is self-guided and they meet one-on-one with their coach, on a schedule that works for them. They learn lifestyle-changing techniques, receive support for modifying behaviors, ask questions, and discuss their progress. They take steps to change habits in six targeted areas.

Pivio’s educational resources guide participants through the program, keep them engaged, and position them for success.

Recheck biometrics in 10 weeks.

Measure how participants’ health has improved. As participants progress in the Pivio or Pivio Now program, they will continue to see gains in their health. At the same time, they will develop lasting habits that keep them healthier for years to come.

Launch another cohort or self-guided program.

More than 85% of participants in a Lifestyle Medicine Institute program are so satisfied with their results, they recommend the program to their colleagues.

Profile of success: Lee Health

Community-owned health system in Southwest Florida

Average after 12 months, 28 participants

Savings on medical claims:

$2,500 saved per participant

$1.85 saved for every dollar invested

Weight loss:

17.1 lbs.

Body mass index:

6.7 point improvement

LDL cholesterol:

20.7 point reduction

Total cholesterol:

27.7 point reduction

Blood pressure:

Below 120/80

Program investment

Investing in a Lifestyle Medicine Institute solution is an affordable way to manage healthcare costs. At the same time, the program helps your employees, members, or patients prevent, treat, or assist in the reversal of many chronic diseases.

Components of the investment

Intellectual property license
Administrative support
Laboratory tests
Program facilitation–facilitation can be provided by a Lifestyle Medicine Institute behavior change health coach or by your organization (we would provide training and certification to your facilitator)

Download our whitepaper “Pivot Point: Transforming our healthcare system through personalized lifestyle medicine”.

Download whitepaper

More information

Want more proof of Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s results?

Published scientific papers deliver statistics and case studies about the program’s success. Review them to find out more about how Lifestyle Medicine Institute’s methods prevent, treat, and assist in the reversal of chronic diseases—and help organizations reduce costs.

Published papers