The tool, called RewardMe, is available to UnitedHealthcare members on the iPhone as an add-on for the Minneapolis-based insurer’s app Health4Me. When a user logs their physical activity for three days per week for four weeks in a row, they receive rewards such as discounts and gift cards at local stores.
The app allows users to track their activities and monitor and log nutritional information. The company is piloting the app in Arizona and Illinois, and the Health4Me app saw a 43 percent user increase between the two pilot markets, according to MedCityNews. The pilot will continue throughout 2015 and possibly launch nationwide in 2016, at which point an Android-device version will be developed.
Health4Me is both a patient-facing app and a claims app that allows users to estimate the prices of various procedures. It also allows patients to connect to nurses 24/7.
The RewardMe tool follows a wave of new apps that incentivize individuals to lose weight or become more physically active. The Pact app, which operates on a membership subscription basis, pays users in cash to live healthily. The Diet Bet app allows users to bet cash on weight-loss goals in a pot with other dieters and win money if they achieve their goals.
