Caterpillar touts colon cancer screening program

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - To improve the quality of colon cancer screening for employees of Caterpillar Inc, Dr. Mike Taylor decided to make doctors compete for its business.

The Peoria, Illinois-based, company, which is the world's biggest maker of construction and mining equipment, spends $650 million each year on healthcare in the United States.

Two years ago, the company met with doctors and hospitals in its two biggest markets in Illinois to improve the quality of screening for colon cancer, the second-biggest cancer killer in the United States behind lung cancer.

The effort is one of several by large U.S. companies to improve the health and productivity of their workers by using their own brand of health reform, even as the White House and Congress struggle to make changes on a national level.

U.S. supermarket chain Safeway Inc, for instance, offers employees incentives to stop smoking and lose weight, and postal equipment maker Pitney Bowes Inc, offers health education programs, drop-in health clinics and generic pricing on many brand name drugs.

Caterpillar has been focusing on the health of its employees since 2002, Taylor, Caterpillar's chief medical officer, told business leaders at an American Cancer Society conference this week in Chicago.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey released this week projects healthcare costs for U.S. companies to rise by 9 percent in 2010, after rising 9.2 percent in 2009, and 9.9 percent in 2008.

Chronic diseases like cancer make up the bulk of those costs. According to the American Cancer Society, U.S. companies spend more than $228 billion a year on healthcare expenses and lost productivity.