UnitedHealth and YMCA tackle diabetes

Insurer pays to keep people healthier

UnitedHealth Group is one of the United States’ largest health insurers, is launching two new schemes that, it hopes, will stop the spiral of medical claims by people with type 2 diabetes, who now number 25 million in the US, with an additional 60 million at high risk of developing it. Both schemes are being rolled out in seven cities – Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton, Ohio, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Phoenix and Tucson.

The first project is that UnitedHealth will work with lifestyle coaches at the YMCA to help people at risk of diabetes, to help them to reduce their chances of developing the disease by reducing their weight by a modest amount. The ‘Y’ has already had success in 16-week programmes in this area, with people who are at risk of diabetes who lose just 5% of their body weight reducing their chances of developing the disease by almost 60%.  The Center for Disease Control will also be running a similar scheme in a further 10 locations. UnitedHealth will pay on the basis of how many people participate, and on how much weight the people in the programmes lose.

The second project, which is being piloted in, is aimed at those who already have diabetes. UnitedHealth will pay a pharmacy, Walgreens, to help to teach people how to manage their condition (and it hopes to expand the programme to other pharmacies in the future). The programme will be free to participants, and open to adults enrolled in health plans the company offers through employers, such as General Electric, whose chief medical officer has praised the programme as ‘very emblematic of thinking about health’.

United Health says that the tens of millions of dollars spent on the project – through helping the YMCA develop the programme and collect data, etc. – ‘will absolutely pay for itself’.

Source: New York Times, 14 April 2010.

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