For the past 10 years, the city of Asheville, NC has given free diabetes medicines and supplies to municipal workers if they agree to monthly counseling from specially trained pharmacists. The results are significant: almost twice as many patients have their blood sugar levels under control and the city's health care plan has saved more than $2,000 in medical costs per patient each year.

Every dollar spent on medicines or counseling saves the city $4 by preventing emergency room visits, dialysis, amputations or other common complications of diabetes. The program has reduced the number of sick days taken among employees, reduced their chances of catastrophic hospitalization, and saved-money for the federal health care system by encouraging better diabetes management.

Efforts to help people change their lifestyles are complicated by a health care system in which insurers typically do not reimburse doctors for the kinds of counseling and monitoring that might keep patients on track. This experiment has enlisted pharmacists as coaches, clinicians and cheerleaders for the participating patients. It seems the coaches, the players, and the club owners agree -- the teamwork is well worth the payoff!