The executive physical: taking care of business means taking care of the people at the top.

• Author: Held, Shari
• Position: Management of health of executives

BOUNCING FROM MEETING to meeting, traveling for days at a time, grabbing fast food or dining on rich restaurant fare and being connected to the office 24/7--the demands of running a company can take a toll on the health of its executives. In the 1970s many hospitals began offering executive physicals to help businesses protect one of their biggest investments--the people at the top. Typically paid for by the company, usage of executive physicals ebbed and flowed in relationship to the economy and other business-related factors, but today many businesses consider this "perk" a strategic part of doing business.

"In the early '90s we had some large companies in Fort Wayne, which we worked with exclusively, that sent their top-level employees to us for physicals," says Pam Potts, executive physical coordinator, Business Health Services of RediMed, which is part of Fort Wayne's Lutheran Health Network. "By the late '90s we started to see cutbacks in their health care and wellness programs. Then about three or four years ago, we started seeing an increase again. Today we have some very committed corporations and they are quite regular with their scheduling."

Taking control. Even though it means half-a-day to an entire day away from the office, executives usually don't need prompting to take advantage of this perk.

Dr. Michael Busk, medical director of the Indiana University Executive Health, Corporate Wellness and Prevention Program, says executives are excellent patients because they have incentive to get healthy and stay healthy, "The Wall Street Journal has published quite a few articles about the benefits," he says. "The RAND Corp. (a global non-profit research firm headquartered in Santa Monica, Calif.) did a 10-year study which shows that those who are in good physical condition, are physically fit, maintain a proper weight and don't smoke, will double their income in 10 years."

IU Medical Group, in partnership with the National Institute for Fitness and Sport (NIFS) in downtown Indianapolis, has been offering executive physicals since 1988. Currently it has 36 corporate clients--including such high-profile accounts as Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. and WellPoint Inc.

"Our main focus is to prevent disease," Busk says. "Prevention is like defense in football. Offense gets the publicity, but it's the defense that wins the Super Bowl (Sorry, Peyton Manning.) If I can get someone to walk 30 minutes per day or three-and-a-half hours per...