Prevention and wellness are often overwhelmed by more urgent and expensive healthcare problems. But, Oregon’s Health CO-OP, a consumer-driven plan, decided to reward its members to stay healthy.
As evidenced by its Wellness Rewards program, the CO-OP provides financial incentives, offering up to $300 cash back for those members in their SiMPLE Plans: $100 for taking a health style survey, $100 for choosing a primary care physician (and letting the CO-OP know their name), and $100 for completing eight Flourish® challenges online during their first 180 days of membership.
This program came about after asking people around the state the type of benefits they wanted from a health plan, said Cinthia Manuel, web, marketing and communications manager. People wanted to be rewarded for being proactive about their health.
“We want our members to gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to better manage their health,” said Ralph Prows, the CO-OP’s CEO and president. “We want them to understand their own health risks, and we want them to engage with their provider. This is why we designed the wellness program with three key activities, which help the members take charge of their health.” After reviewing several wellness programs, the CO-OP chose Portland-based Insignia Health with its Patient Activation Measure® and Flourish® Challenges. The Patient Activation Measure “gauges the knowledge, skills and confidence essential to managing one’s own health and healthcare.” According to the Insignia website, more than 180 studies of the Patient Activation Measure assessment have been completed or are underway worldwide, most of which have documented its effectiveness.
While the CO-OP doesn’t follow up with members who complete the health style survey or the Flourish challenges, the challenges are personalized based on the member’s score, and help them become or remain active.
“Our focus is to provide an outlet for members to engage in their health and health systems,” Manuel explained. “We’re providing them with tools to be able to do this.”
The CO-OP has approximately 13,000 members, 95 percent of whom are SiMPLE plan members. About 3,000 members have taken advantage of the wellness financial incentives.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
https://www.ohcoop.org/ https://www.ohcoop.org/wellness-rewards/ https://www.ohcoop.org/families-individuals/wellness-rewards/ https://www.ohcoop.org/families-individuals/our-plans/plan-documents/ http://www.insigniahealth.com/solutions/patient-activation-measure http://www.insigniahealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PAM-Fact-Sheet-08122014.pdf http://www.insigniahealth.com/solutions/flourish http://www.insigniahealth.com/research/pam-development http://www.insigniahealth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Flourish-Fact-Sheet.06092014.pdf
Joanne can be reached at [email protected].
