...fitness apps including Aetna iTriage as well as independents BodyMedia, Fitbug, JawboneUP, LoseIt! and Withings. Currently Aetna members have easiest access, but it is available free to non-Aetna members as well. Not answered was the speaker’s rhetorical question– ‘the last thing I want is an insurer to have my info’–a significant barrier to sustained consumer engagement. This panel went and felt long, and this Editor looked forward to a short break. At 12:30 or so, there was a group gathering at the back of the room with plates of food. At the panel’s conclusion, the chatting started. But no, there... Continue Reading
Search Results for CVS Aetna
New York, New York…it’s a health tech town (Part 1)
...floor and hosted the Digital Health Summit (DHS). Matchpoint|East is our starting point in Part 1. Matchpoint|East, Tuesday 25 June (@Goodwin Procter) Health 2.0’s Matchpoint series combines general sessions held in a spacious corporate setting with designated 15-20 minute meetings/demos between ‘matched’ health tech entrepreneurs and large stakeholders, including Healthagen/Aetna, Humana, Hewlett-Packard, Athenahealth, Ziegler and numerous funders. It is organized to have generous networking, groups around tables and side meeting time in a compact five-hour session plus reception. While your Editor did not have access to the stakeholder meetings, she saw early-stage entrepreneurs she knows, such as Serge Loncar of... Continue Reading
Digital Health Summit @ CEWeek adds speakers
If you are in the New York area or can get there on 26 June, you should be attending the Digital Health Summit at CEWeek. There is a definite ‘made in NY’ focus with local healthcare technology companies increasingly being backed by investors [TTA 14 May MIT Forum conference report]. Topics include ‘five technologies we’re betting your health on’, sports and fitness devices and apps, sensors in a wide variety of clothing and other applications, and pharma in the age of digital. Companies include Aetna/Healthagen, Etymotic (quiet sound amplification), Medivizor (personalized e-patient content), SecuraTrac (mPERS), GreatCall and Qardio (vital signs... Continue Reading
Telemedicine breaking through with payers? (US)
Cigna, the tenth largest insurer in the US, jumped this week on the virtual consult wagon train with earlier pioneers UnitedHealthcare (#1), WellPoint (#2) and Aetna (#5). Cigna is partnering with MDLive to offer online video, telephone or e-mail consultations with doctors for non-urgent care as an option for self-insured employers nationwide starting 1 July for plans effective 1 January 2014. MDLive will send, via Cigna, summaries of telehealth visits to patients’ physicians. Cigna’s present telemedicine partner, McKesson’s RelayHealth, will remain for virtual consults with the patient’s own physician. Among payers, the widest coverage appears to be UnitedHealthcare with NowClinic... Continue Reading
Employee wellness: Carrot? Stick? Or something else?
The actions of companies like CVS Caremark [TTA Telehealth Soapbox] have aimed a white-hot klieg light onto corporate wellness and the various methodologies companies are using to force a change in employees’ behaviors to positively affect their healthcare spend. Both positive and negative incentives have their pros and cons–positive incentives tied to completion of wellness ‘tasks’ seem not to work long term, penalties can be a blow to morale and verge on full-blown discrimination and lawsuits. Increasingly the price of being in a corporate health plan seems to be acceptance of ‘intrusion for your own good’ and privacy loss. On... Continue Reading
Telehealth Soapbox: A random walk through privacy, “the right to be forgotten” and health tech
...the minimum wage. While many may not be in the plan (the young via parents, older through Medicare or spouses), the idea of workers being penalized for non-participation (the stick) is controversial. Adding to it, the program is administered by WebMD, which needs the business badly. Personal health data is supposedly secured by them, inaccessible to CVS–but it is easy to envision it becoming a base for their new Health Cloud PHR/monitoring data aggregator and that information being further ‘developed’. It almost doesn’t matter if the data will not be touched by CVS Caremark. The perception is that CVS will... Continue Reading
Vitality GlowCaps go retail (again)
...giant CVS. GlowCaps are connected via AT&T’s mobile network for activation and reminders. In beta is the GlowPack–a zippered pouch for those medications such as liquids and blister packs that don’t fit into a pill container. CVS Caremark is also testing GlowCaps as part of a randomized control trial on medication adherence among CVS Caremark members with suboptimal control of their LDL cholesterol levels. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH) database ClinicalTrials.gov, a series of three incentive programs plus GlowCaps will be measured versus GlowCaps use only. GlowCaps now sold through CVS, new randomized control trial launches (Mobihealthnews)... Continue Reading
Aetna introduces Healthagen brand for health tech, ACO businesses
US health insurer Aetna announced Friday a new business unit under a name not used since 2011–Healthagen, the name of the company that developed the iTriage consumer symptom research/health provider locator app purchased by Aetna in December of that year. In the Healthagen division will be current units that were grouped under the less smartly named Aetna Emerging Business: iTriage, ActiveHealth Management (population health management), Medicity (health information exchange), Practice iQ (to transition independent physician groups into value-based care models) and a slightly rebranded Accountable Care Solutions (ACS) from Aetna (large hospital systems, integrated delivery networks/IDN and hospital ACOs). The... Continue Reading
Is consumer engagement gaining traction with insurers? (US)
Some encouraging and unusual developments with Aetna and Cigna around weight loss and wellness. In December, Aetna unveiled Passage, a fitness app it developed with Microsoft, which takes the user on virtual tours of running or biking in Barcelona, New York or Rome, with real-time photos of those locations, restaurant recommendations and historical facts along the route. Cigna has bundled four apps for nutrition, exercise, and mind and body relaxation free to the first 20,000 downloaders. For instance, the most popular, Fooducate, helps users grade the nutrition in their groceries and offers more healthy alternatives. The sudden interest in consumer... Continue Reading
Patient engagement and payers new theme of mHealth Summit
Based on reports coming in, the mHealth Summit this week in Washington D.C. had a greater focus on the US and patient engagement than the past two years, which emphasized governmental programs and non-profit NGOs, but with a twist–insurers are moving upfront in the picture. From Aetna‘s CEO Mark Bertolini keynoting and promoting their iTriage management app to the announcement of the open CarePass mobile platform that organizes 20 smartphone apps that help consumers manage their health and fitness, UnitedHealthcare Group‘s similar OptumizeMe and even AT&T insisting it’s a payer (self-insured), the rationale is better health for consumers, better care... Continue Reading
Most Recent Comments