Break Your Sugar Addiction in 10 Days (Infographic)
From our wellness partner, Cleveland Clinic
Do you have a sweet tooth? Most of us will overindulge at times. But the more sugar we consume, the more we want, says Mark Hyman, MD. However, the good news is that people can break the sugar addiction in 10 days. Here’s how.
Break Your Sugar Addiction Infographic
For more information on setting up a Wellness Program for your group please call us (855) 667-4621
Dark, Milk or White – Which Chocolate Is Best for Your Heart? (Infographic)
From our wellness partner, Cleveland Clinic
Chocolate is good for blood flow, which means it’s good for your heart. But not all chocolate is created equal. Find out about the healthy antioxidants and what else is inside so you can make the best choice of chocolate for your heart health.
The NCQA believes its own health plan accreditation program and program data could useful to exchange programs, the NCQA says. With so much more individual choice on both, the Marketplace Health Exchange and off-Exchange along with new Health Insurers this is an important consumer tool.
About NCQA
NCQA is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to improving health care quality. NCQA’s Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS®) is the most widely used performance measurement tool in health care. NCQA accredits and certifies a wide range of health care organizations and recognizes physicians in key clinical areas. NCQA is committed to providing health care quality information through the Web, media and data licensing agreements in order to help consumers, employers and others make more informed health care choices.
NCQA accreditation ratings are based on three sets of measurements HEDIS®, CAHPS® and NCQA accreditation standards. Health plans in every state, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are NCQA Accredited. These plans cover 109 million Americans or 70.5 percent of all Americans enrolled in health plans.
HEDIS is a set of standardized performance measures designed to ensure that purchasers and consumers have the information they need to reliably compare health care quality. The Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and System (CAHPS) is a survey mailed to select members asking them to rate their experience with the care given by their doctors and the services provided by their plans.
How the Results of HEDIS and CAHPS Help Consumers Results from HEDIS and CAHPS enable consumers to understand how well Insurers are fulfilling our clinical agenda to help members stay healthy, get better quickly or live effectively with chronic illness. In addition, the scores facilitate our ability to identify areas of care and service where we can continue to improve. The results also enable us to compare our companies’ performance with other local and national health plans.
The “Excellent” ratings our plans received demonstrate that members continue to receive high-quality health care and that they are satisfied with the service that their physicians, health care practitioners and health plans provide.
HEDIS® (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) is a registered trademark of the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).
CAHPS® (Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) is a registered trademark of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).
For more information about these plans and the full range of offerings available through MMS Inc. contact us today at (855) 667-4621.
Your plans NCQA 2014 Rating
NCQA Health Insurance Plan Rankings 2014-2015
Click on any Plan Name for details.
Methodology and other information about the rankings is here
Immunizations are one of the top ten public health accomplishments of the twentieth century according to the CDCP (Center for Disease Control and Prevention).
Talk with your health care provider, not just about childhood vaccines, but for adults also. This knowledge may help prevent illness and outbreaks due to vaccine preventable diseases. Vaccines are recommended throughout your lifetime. They are an important step in protecting against serious and sometimes deadly diseases.
Vaccines are proven to protect children from fourteen serious diseases before the age of two. Adolescence from cancer caused by certain types of HPV, young adults from meningitis and people of all ages from flu, as well as, the aging population from various illnesses.
New York State Immunization Requirements for School Entrance:Attendance1 Local States already requires specific vaccines for public school attendance. There is an assistance program offered, by the Pennsylvania department of health, to obtain vaccinations through federally funded “Vaccines for Children”, providing access to immunizations to low income, underinsured children through age 18. Uninsured children regardless of income are eligible for the Children’s health insurance program. Adults are encouraged also to review their immunizations with their physician, also checked with your individual insurance plan for coverage of adult immunizations, for the specific vaccines covered under your plan.
Please refer to the “CDC” (Center for Disease Control) website for further information on types of immunizations suggested for pre-school, adolescents and adults. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/index.html
Please note: This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to replace the advice of a medical professional. To schedule your Employer day of wellness & flu vaccinations call us (855) 667-4621.
Alas, Apple has finally unveiled the stylish Apple Watch at today’s celebrated annual presentation. This anticipated product has been talked about so long that its easy to forget its a ground-breaking invention. This gadget is as much a story about fashion and health wellness as tech.
Not surprisingly , the integration of health sensors is a key feature. While the exact specs were not released we do know it will measure heart rate, track steps, milage, calories and sleep, and its GPS system will synch with iPhone. The watch is also designed to “learn” about the wearer, suggesting fitness goals. Apple has developed two different apps that should draw in both gym rats and casual movers. Third Party apps are expected to follow.
This will not be the first wearable workout device. The real estate for your body by fitness companies has been converging but there is nothing arguably this aesthetically beautiful, comprehensively functional and scalable. It will be interesting to see how these wearable devices AKA “Fitbit” is incorporated into work wellness programs. This occupational health was covered in prior blog Wearable Workout at Work:
“Employers incentivizing fitness by lowering lower insurance premiums in exchange for wearing fitness tracking bracelets. Bloomberg reports that BP Plc drive for occupational wellness offered an employee’s spouse the option “to wear a fitness-tracking bracelet from FitBit Inc. to earn points toward cheaper health insurance,” which is “an example of how companies, facing rising health expenses, are increasingly buying or subsidizing fitness-tracking devices to encourage employees and their dependents to be more fit……..UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), Humana Inc. (HUM), Cigna Corp. (CI) and Highmark Inc. have developed similar programs, in which “consumers wear the device and the activity data is uploaded to an online system so it can be verified to give a person their reward.” The article notes, however, that “the moves also let employers and insurers gather more data about people’s lives, raising questions from privacy advocates,” one of whom notes that “when financial incentives are involved, Dixon said it forces employees’ hands and narrows the question of whether or not they should participate.”
The catch? The price tag of $349, unknown battery life and oh yea it only works with the new iPhone 6. Nevertheless, I must of course order one for myself for occupational reasons as part of wellness studies and future articles.
Please contact us on setting up a wellness & fitness program for your business at (855) 667+4621. For MMS Corp previous blogs on wellness, click here. Please contact us on wellness initiatives for your business at (855) 667+4621.
Employers incentivizing fitness by lowering lower insurance premiums in exchange for wearing fitness tracking bracelets. Bloomberg reports that BP Plc drive for occupational wellness offered an employee’s spouse the option “to wear a fitness-tracking bracelet from FitBit Inc. to earn points toward cheaper health insurance,” which is “an example of how companies, facing rising health expenses, are increasingly buying or subsidizing fitness-tracking devices to encourage employees and their dependents to be more fit.
” The article notes that UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH), Humana Inc. (HUM), Cigna Corp. (CI) and Highmark Inc. have developed similar programs, in which “consumers wear the device and the activity data is uploaded to an online system so it can be verified to give a person their reward.” The article notes, however, that “the moves also let employers and insurers gather more data about people’s lives, raising questions from privacy advocates,” one of whom notes that “when financial incentives are involved, Dixon said it forces employees’ hands and narrows the question of whether or not they should participate.”
Wear This Device So the Boss Knows You’re Losing Weight
To fight rising medical costs, oil company BP Plc (BP) last year offered Cory Slagle — a 260-pound former football lineman — an unusual way to trim $1,200 from his annual insurance bill.
One option was to wear a fitness-tracking bracelet from Fitbit Inc. to earn points toward cheaper health insurance. With the gadget, the 51-year-old walked more than 1 million steps over several months, wirelessly logging the activity on the device. Twelve months later, Slagle has added to his new exercise regimen by trading burgers for salads and soda for water, dropping 70 pounds (31.8 kilograms) and 10 pant sizes in the process.
“I can see my toes now,” said Slagle, a middle-school administrator whose wife, Kristi, works for BP in Houston. The company’s program, he said, is “pushing me to get off the couch and make the right decisions.”
Slagle’s wife is thrilled with his thinner frame — as is BP. His once-high blood pressure and cholesterol are now in a normal range, significantly lowering BP’s risk of covering treatments related to heart trouble or other medical problems.
Slagle’s experience is an example of how companies, facing rising health expenses, are increasingly buying or subsidizing fitness-tracking devices to encourage employees and their dependents to be more fit. The tactic may reduce corporate health-care costs by encouraging healthier lifestyles, even as companies must overcome a creepy factor and concerns from privacy advocates that employers are prying too deeply into workers’ personal lives.
Source: Cory Slagle via Bloomberg
Cory Slagle wore a fitness-tracking bracelet from FitBit Inc. to earn points toward… Read More
Insurers Too
Apart from BP, insurers includingUnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH),Humana Inc. (HUM), Cigna Corp. (CI) and Highmark Inc. have also created programs to integrate wearable gadgets into their policies. The aim is to get people more invested in taking care of themselves. Consumers wear the device and the activity data is uploaded to an online system so it can be verified to give a person their reward.
“What employers want is the person to take an active role in their health,” said Dee Brock, who has incorporated wearable devices into wellness programs for Pittsburgh-based HighMark.
Privacy Flags
The adoption of wearable devices by companies and insurers is increasing as spending on corporate wellness incentives has doubled to $594 per employee since 2009, according to a study by Fidelity Investments and National Business Group on Health. Technology is creating new forms of wellness programs to measure whether employees are making improvements, similar to a trend in the car-insurance industry where drivers who put a monitoring sensor on their vehicle can earn lower rates based on how well they are driving, instead of their driving history.
Source: Cory Slagle via Bloomberg
Cory Slagle lost 70 pounds after starting to wear a FitBit given to him by energy…Read More
Yet the moves also let employers and insurers gather more data about people’s lives, raising questions from privacy advocates. Wearable gadgets are advancing beyond tracking steps, with sensors to monitor heart rates, glucose levels, body temperature and other functions.
“The focus on preventive health at the expense of privacy is dangerous,” said Pam Dixon, founder of the World Privacy Forum in San Diego, which focuses on health privacy issues. “Right now it’s tracking steps per day, and the reach isn’t that far with these devices, but in time it will be quite sophisticated.”
When financial incentives are involved, Dixon said it forces employees’ hands and narrows the question of whether or not they should participate. The gathering of health data also opens the door for people to eventually be charged more or less based on the information, she said.
Security Requirements
These are among the ethical questions still to be addressed about the appropriateness of companies tracking the physical activity of employees, said Harry Wang, a researcher for Parks Associates who has been studying the market. With wearable devices, collecting more sensitive information is likely to bring tougher government oversight, he said.
“There will be high levels of privacy, security and compliance requirements,” Wang said. “There will be high expectations from consumers about how the data will be used.”
Companies and insurers said they protect the privacy of people using wearable gadgets, and comply with federal laws that prevent employers from seeing certain health information about employees without consent. The wearable programs are voluntary and often administered by third-party vendors like StayWell, which works with BP.
Aggregated Only
As part of the BP program, employees who use a Fitbit to log 1 million steps earn half of the 1,000 points needed each year to qualify for lower co-pays, deductibles and out-of-pocket health expenses. BP bought 25,000 Fitbit devices for North American employees, including those at refineries and drilling rigs. Points can also be earned by getting an annual physical, taking an online health class and other initiatives.
“We think the device is easy to use, gets people aware of how little they are walking and helps trigger people to get active,” said Karl Dalal, director of health and wellness benefits at BP. “BP doesn’t see any of the data except in the aggregate.”
The market for wearable devices is small — about 2 percent of the 1 billion smartphones shipped globally last year — so creating interest from employers and insurance companies is key to growth. Some 22 million fitness-tracking devices will be sold this year, and 66 million by 2018, with about a third coming from corporate-wellness programs, according to Parks Associates. The incentives an employer or insurance company can offer is a way to keep people using the gadget, instead of throwing it in a drawer once the novelty wears off.
Targeting Businesses
Under the Affordable Care Act, the new national health-care law, companies can spend as much as 30 percent of annual insurance premiums on rewards for healthy behavior.
Technology companies are taking note. Apple Inc. (AAPL), which has new health-tracking software called HealthKit that will be released this year and is said to be developing its own wearable device, has talked with UnitedHealth, the biggest U.S. insurer, and Humana, about its health initiatives, executives at the insurance providers said. The companies wouldn’t provide specifics about the conversations. Apple declined to comment.
Fitbit has a sales force dedicated to pitching employers and insurance companies, and touts software to make it easier to log the activity of workers, down to specific individuals if a company wants, said Amy McDonough, who coordinates deals for Fitbit with companies. Other makers of wearable devices, including Jawbone, Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and iHealth Lab Inc., have also targeted businesses.
Samsung leads the smart wearable-band market, according to a report today from Canalys. The researcher estimated the wearable band market grew almost eightfold in the first half of 2014 from a year ago.
Insurance Link
Some employers are encouraging the use of wearables without the gadgets being tied to lower insurance rates. Houston Methodist, owner of a chain of hospitals in the Houston area, got about 6,000 Fitbits this year and is offering employees the chance to win $10,000 if they walk more steps than the company’s top executives. Fitbit said it also works with Time Warner Inc. (TWX) and Autodesk Inc. (ADSK)
“Walking alone isn’t going to beat diabetes, but it’s certainly going to help,” said Marc Boom, chief executive officer of Houston Methodist. “Being more active results in better health. That’s indisputable.”
Scotty’s Brewhouse
At Scotty’s Brewhouse in Indianapolis, where the $15 “Big Ass Brewhouse Burger” includes four quarter-pound beef patties and American cheese, owner Scott Wise offers an extra day of vacation for managers at his 11 restaurants who use a Jawbone UP device to log an average of 10,000 steps a day for three months. That has some managers like Brian Winnie exercising more to earn time off for a trip he wants to take to Memphis, Tennessee.
“Outside of work, I picked up riding my bike to add extra steps that way,” Winnie said in an interview.
Despite some early enthusiasm, many companies are waiting to see whether the use of wearables is a fitness fad. No major research has been done that shows the use of these devices leads to lower health-care costs and many employers want to know “if this is something that’s a passing trend or something that has staying power and can have proven results,” said Eric Herbek, who runs digital engagement for Cigna.
The gadgets have been worthwhile for Chris Barbin, CEO of Appirio Inc. in San Francisco. He said about 40 percent of his staff, which numbers around 1,000, participates in a voluntary fitness program that includes uploading their activity with Fitbit.
$300,000 Discount
While health costs weren’t the priority for the program, Barbin said that by sharing the data with the company’s health care provider he negotiated $300,000 off his company’s roughly $5 million in annual insurance costs by showing his staff is getting healthier. He said privacy protections are in place for those who want to keep the data secret. The program has become one of the most popular forums on Appirio’s internal social network, he said.
“We had an initial batch of data about people who had lost weight, and people who had moved from high risk to moderate risk,” he said. “When we could show all that information to our insurer, that’s pretty powerful.”
Kristi Slagle, whose husband slimmed down through BP’s program, isn’t concerned about privacy with the gadgets. She said the program injects more fairness into the system because those who are healthier currently end up shouldering more costs for those who aren’t.
“I like that BP is making people more accountable,” she said.
Talk with your health care provider, not just about childhood vaccines, but for adults also. This knowledge may help prevent illness and outbreaks due to vaccine preventable diseases. Vaccines are recommended throughout your lifetime. They are an important step in protecting against serious and sometimes deadly diseases.
