FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
The Hoban family, of Kaneohe, are among the participants in HMSA's HealthPass program. From left, children Michelle, Sean, Lynn and Carlo, along with parents Jim and Beth, have their health screened yearly. Carlo lost 25 pounds and was an inspiration to the others.
Beth and Jim Hoban and four of their five children, including a daughter home from college for the holidays, plan an unusual family outing this month: They're going for an annual free health risk screening. Program spurs
family to healthHMSA's HealthPass offers free
annual health risk screenings
to certain membersBy Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.comThey heard five years ago about the Hawaii Medical Service Association's HealthPass program, available to members of the Preferred Provider and Point-of-Service Plans, Beth Hoban said.
"We thought this would be a good way for our children to get started with good healthy-style living," she said.
"You tell them what to do, what's right, but if they hear it from somebody else, reinforced, they listen. It worked; it really did."
The HealthPass program provides free health risk assessments to eligible HMSA members and covered spouses. Subscribers receive HealthPass invitations a month before their birthday every year.
The program was one of three in the country that recently received the C. Everett Koop National Health Award for 2002. Others were FedEx Express and Motorola.
Koop, former U.S. surgeon general, chairs the Health Project, a nonprofit, private-public consortium dedicated to improving health and reducing medical costs.
HealthPass, a health promotion and disease prevention program, began in 1990 with fewer than 3,000 members and now serves about 20,000 members statewide.
"It's really a good program," said Beth Hoban, 52, administrator and president of Prime Care Services, a Medicare-certified home health agency.
"Some insurance plans do not cover a regular physical because it's screening. HealthPass covers it," she said.
She participates with her husband, Jim, 56, Prime Care Services chief financial officer; and children Sean, 27; Carlo, 22; and Lynn, 17, who attends Santa Clara University in Santa Clara, Calif. Michelle, 16, is joining the family for health screening this month for the first time. Their oldest son, 32, lives in Las Vegas.
The HealthPass assessment, which takes about half an hour, involves filling out a questionnaire about a person's lifestyle, including "what we eat, do we smoke -- and we don't," Beth Hoban said.
Then the nurses check blood pressure and cholesterol, ask about exercise and do a quick health assessment.
"They advise you about what you should do to make your health better," Beth Hoban said.
Her cholesterol was high and her husband's was borderline at the first screening five years ago, she said.
She began working out on a treadmill at Honolulu Club, and the children began different forms of exercise, she said.
Carlo, especially, had put on some weight in his teen years, she said. "Through the program, he started on his own running the treadmill and eating healthily," Beth Hoban said. "He built up his strength and motivated all of us."
She said he has kept up the activities and "advises us if we eat junk food."
"He looks at us and says, 'That's not really healthy,'" she said.
When he lost 25 or 30 pounds, the family became concerned that he wasn't eating, she said, but he said he was just "eating healthy."
"The nurse at HealthPass talked to him about watching his diet and making sure he exercises" because his cholesterol was rising at an early age, she said.
She and her husband bought him a fitness club membership, and when it lapsed they bought a treadmill for their Kaneohe home that everyone can use, she said.
But they aren't entirely faithful about exercise, she admitted, explaining they start off good at the beginning of the year, then slack off until it's time to go back to HealthPass.
"Before we go to HealthPass, we start getting into this; we've got to lose weight," she said.
One of the advantages of HealthPass, she said, is, "you have nurses there who spend a little bit more time with you, and if you need further follow-up ... the nurses will help you with what questions to ask (a doctor)."
The nurses provide written information on healthy foods and stress-relieving techniques, which Hoban said her children found very helpful.
"I post them on the refrigerator," she said.
Mammograms are not provided as part of the screening, but the nurses suggest places for those, with costs covered by HMSA, Hoban said.
If the screening indicates more exams are needed, a HealthPass nurse helps the member make appointments. And if any abnormal results are found, the nurse reports them to the member and arranges to have them sent to the member's physician.
Hawaii Medical Service Association
