In July 2013 ACAC Fitness & Wellness Centers hired Dr. Gregory Degnan as its medical director. The Virginia-based club has seen medical aspects be incorporated inside athletic facilities throughout the U.S., and felt that to complete its wellness package, it should follow suit.
Although Degnan has been a recent hire by ACAC, his affiliation with the athletic facility goes back almost 15 years. “I’m actually an ACAC member, and 15 years ago I met Phil [Wendel] through a mutual acquaintance and he and I got to talking, had a fair amount in common,” said Degnan.
Among those commonalities was the belief that the healthcare and fitness industries should be more conjoined. “We talked that there should be an integration between those two,” he said. “We had a lot of conversations about it back then, but at that point both of us realized that it was really sort of a pipe dream. The fitness industry at that point wanted nothing to do with third party payers, and the medical profession and healthcare industry at that point really, was to a large extent, looking down their nose at the fitness industry.”
Now, 15 years later, the perception of fitness has shifted and we are looking at developing a common bond between fitness and healthcare. Although Degnan has been working to help improve ACAC’s already successful p.r.e.p. (physician referred exercise program), he believes that long-term he will play a major role in lobbying for a wellness connection, third party payment system from the healthcare system in Virginia.
“I was one of three physicians that helped map out the physician referred exercise program,” said Degnan. “About a year and half, two years ago is when he and I really started talking seriously, for a number of reasons. Whether you do or don’t like Obomacare, and I won’t get into the politics of the affordable healthcare act, the bottom line is one thing that it has done is it has raised and taken down the system as it existed. We sort of know we have to build a new system and part of this system is mandated wellness.
“Shortly after the affordable healthcare act started, Phil came to me and said ‘look, what’s the role here for us? Is this an opportunity for us in our industry.’ The short answer was an obvious ‘yes.’ He had talked to me previously about MFA (Medical Fitness Association) and being certified, I told him ‘do it now, so that when the time is right you are on the ground floor and running.’”
About a year after Degnan and Wendel had discussed the MFA certification and possibly bringing on a medical director, Degnan, who has been a leading orthopedic specialist, developed a rare medical condition that only affects about 600 people in the entire world. The condition, known as idiopathic anaphylaxis, has taken Degnan out of the operating room for the foreseeable future, therefore opening up time for him to take on the role as medical director at ACAC.
Anaphylaxis is typically associated with an identifiable trigger that creates a serious allergic reaction. Idiopathic anaphylaxis is the diagnosis when a specific trigger can’t be discovered. When people have an allergy that is triggered they can go into anaphylactic shock. However, Degnan doesn’t have an allergy, instead he has a gene mutation in his white blood cells that could cause him to go into anaphylactic shock at any moment.
“Obviously you don’t want me to have you wide open on the operating table,” he said. “That’s created a pretty big hole in my schedule. Wellness has always been my passion. It’s kind of ironic because I’m in the ultimate fix-what’s-broke occupation. But I’ve always been a believer that medicine has done it wrong. We’ve always fixed what’s broken instead of preventing the break.”
Degnan has been the member of a club since he was 14 years old. He’s always been an active exerciser inside of clubs. The knowledge that he has retained over the years of being inside a club, plus his immense knowledge of health and health care, will allow him to truly be a new, strong wellness entity within ACAC.
By Tyler Montgomery
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
