Health insurance company United HealthCare Services Inc. launched a mobile health and fitness incentive program, powered by a wearable device and an app, at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Las Vegas this week.
The program is called UnitedHealthcare Motion and provides insured employees with a fitness wearable device that tracks their steps. The wearable device sends the health tracking data to the UnitedHealthcare Motion app. If they meet certain goals, employees can earn health reimbursements credits, up to $1,460 per year, based on the number of steps they take.
This program is meant to encourage employees to be active, and in turn reduce claims dollars for their employers, United HealthCare says. This program is available to selected workers at companies with 101 to 300 employees with a health insurance plan.
A person who is more sedentary, or walks an average of 2,000 to 4,000 steps a day, typically has healthcare claims exceeding $10,000, a United HealthCare spokesman says, citing United HealthCare’s predicted annual healthcare cost data. The more steps on average a person walks per day, the more claims dollars typically fall, he says.
The wearable has three “fit goals” that the consumer has to meet each day in order to receive the reward. She will receive $4 each day that she meets all three goals. United HealthCare will deposit the funds into her Health Reimbursement Account, which she can draw on for her healthcare costs, United HealthCare says.
The fit goals, which are the same for everyone in the program, are categorized by frequency, intensity and tenacity. For frequency, employees must take six, five-minute walks each day; for intensity, employees need to complete one, 30-minute walk with at least 3,000 steps per day; and for tenacity, consumers must take at least 10,000 steps per day.
“(This is) offering a nice carrot to motivate employees to be able to help drive down those healthcare costs for their employers long term,” the United HealthCare spokesman says.
UnitedHealthcare Motion is the first program born out of a collaboration between United HealthCare and wireless technology provider Qualcomm Life Inc., which handles the transmission of the medical data between the wearable device and the app. This collaboration also was announced at HIMSS.