by Heather Landi | Dec 9, 2019 11:47am
Fitness
tracker company Fitbit is teaming up with a Medicaid plan in Georgia to
encourage beneficiaries to better manage their chronic conditions.
Marking
the company's first partnership with a Medicaid plan, Fitbit is working
with WellCare of Georgia to arm Medicaid enrollees with Type 2 diabetes
with a Fitbit Inspire device.
Beginning
on January 1, 2020, approximately 4,000 plan enrollees with Type 2 diabetes
will be eligible to receive a device if they complete their annual diabetic
retinal exam (DRE), according to Amy McDonough, senior vice president, and
general manager of Fitbit Health Solutions, in a LinkedIn blog post.
Those
who sign up also will receive educational materials and activity challenges
through Fitbit’s platform. The goal is to help people adopt long-term behavior
changes to better manage their chronic conditions.
"Nearly
one in five people in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid, and this partnership is
the beginning of an important connection between Fitbit and a population that
has not historically had access to innovative healthcare technology," McDonough
wrote.
She
notes that the partnership is a promising approach that could help an
underserved population get healthier and better manage a chronic condition.
Fitbit’s
collaboration with Medicaid comes as more health plans, particularly Medicare
Advantage plans, have begun to include wearable devices as an embedded benefit
for their members.
Next
year Fitbit devices will be included in Medicare Advantage plans offered by
three insurers, making them even more accessible to seniors who are
increasingly interested in adopting technology that can help them be proactive
about their health as they age, McDonough said.
Fitbit
devices will be an embedded benefit in 59 plans offered by
UnitedHealthcare across 27 states—up from 42 plans in 2019.
"As
Medicare Advantage plans increasingly dedicate their focus to keeping their
members out of the hospital by driving adoption of healthy behaviors, Fitbit
devices and the resources they offer have become an important part of that
strategy," she wrote.
2019
has been a busy year for Fitbit as the company made several moves to expand its
platform to more people. The company is in the process of being acquired by
tech giant Google, which announced in November it plans
to buy Fitbit for $7.25 per share in cash, valuing the company at $2.1 billion.
In
August Fitbit signaled it was deepening its reach into healthcare with a
new premium subscription service for users that offers coaching and
personalized insights mined from the health data it collects from 27.3 million
users.
The
company also is working with pharmaceutical giants Bristol-Myers Squibb and
Pfizer to accelerate the detection and diagnosis of atrial fibrillation to
reduce the risk of life-threatening events such as stroke. The
collaboration will rely on Fitbit's afib detection software, which the tech
giant plans to submit to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
for regulatory review and approval, company executives said in October.
The
wearables company also is working with Singapore’s Health Promotion Board
on a population-based public health initiative. The program, called Live Healthy SG, will spur
the city-state's residents to adopt fitness trackers to encourage healthier
lifestyle habits.
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