WellNet Interactive President, Judith Mueller Discusses How an Integrated Approach to Medical, Care and Disease Management Can Drive Engagement Rates to Over 50 Percent When Properly Managed and Incented

In this podcast, HPM Institute Executive Director George Pantos interviews Judith Mueller, President of WellNet Interactive, who points out that participation rates – the percentage of people covered in a policy that actively engage with a plan by following prescribed steps to improve life-style or effectively address health issues – is typically quite low in programs administered by traditional insurance companies.

“In a carrier-based disease-management program, these engagement rates can typically hover around the 5-10 percent mark,” she explains in her conversation with Pantos.

By contrast, she points out that when incentives and proper management structures are put in place, those engagement rates can reach 57 percent, with some organizations experiencing 89 percent participation with covered members of a plan.

“We have been able to demonstrate very clearly that good healthcare outcomes drive significant cost reductions. But the key to achieving these outcomes revolves around getting those covered by a plan to engage and participate effectively with wellness initiatives. It therefore follows that if you can elevate constructive participation in wellness programs, then organizations can achieve the elusive objective of bending back the healthcare cost curve,” says Mueller.

Through a series of strategies that involve the accurate and timely aggregation of plan member data, incentives to involve plan members in programs and a solid plan to proactively manage wellness initiatives, Mueller discusses how her organization has been able to beat nationally benchmarked participation rates.

“In so doing, we have been able to show that it is possible to not only stabilize…but actually reverse…the healthcare cost trends that many organizations face,” she says.

Tweet

Podcast File: 

HPM Institute Wellness Podcast with Judy Mueller.mp3