The nation's largest health insurer, Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealthcare, is rolling out a new program to help individuals enrolled in its employer-sponsored health plans get fit and have a chance to earn extra cash, according to the StarTribune.
Enrollees and their spouses have the potential to earn up to $1,460 over the course of year for meeting daily fitness goals.
UnitedHealthcare is working with San Diego-based Qualcomm to provide fitness tracking devices to certain employer health plans that purchase coverage from the insurer. Qualcomm doesn't make the fitness trackers; rather, it provides the "medical-grade connectivity" that enables data from the sensors in the devices to be transmitted to a database while ensuring privacy and security.
The decision comes as more employers have expressed an interested in including the devices as part of their health plans. According to the report, in 2015 consulting firm Mercer found nearly one-fourth of large employers encouraged employees to use a wearable device to track their fitness.
The program, called UnitedHealthcare Motion, is currently available to companies with between 101 and 300 employees in nearly a dozen states, with more states being added this year.
Employees in participating employer health plans will receive a tracker as part of their insurance premium, according to Steve Beecy, a vice president with UnitedHealthcare. "Its unique algorithm tracks the frequency of the walk, the intensity and the tenacity," he said, according to the report.
Employees and their spouses can each earn up to $4 per day for hitting three fitness goals. If the user takes 300 steps within 5 minutes, six times per day, he or she can earn $1.50. The user can earn another $1.25 for walking 3,000 steps within a 30-minute stretch, and walking a total of 10,000 steps in a day yields another $1.25.
The funds are deposited in the enrollee's health reimbursement account, which can be used to support general healthcare expenses before utilizing traditional insurance coverage.