Insurance heavyweight Aetna is dropping its CarePass mobile fitness app, MobiHealthNews reported yesterday, with plans to phase out the platform by the end of this year.
The reasoning was vague, but an Aetna spokesperson told MobiHealthNews in a statement that the company had “decided to make no further investments in the CarePass platform. In addition, we will not be conducting pilot programs with Aetna plan sponsors that were previously reported.”
Over its two-year life span, CarePass had plenty of support from a wide array of partners, among them: MapMyFitness, LoseIt, RunKeeper, Fooducate, Jawbone, Fitbit, fatsecret, Withings, breathresearch (makers of MyBreath), Zipongo, BodyMedia, Active, Goodchime!, MoxieFit, Passage, FitSync, FitBug, BettrLife, Thryve, SparkPeople, HealthSpark, NetPulse, Earndit, FoodEssentials, Personal.com, Healthline, GoodRx, GymPact, Pilljogger, mHealthCoach, Care4Today, and meQuilibrium.
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Despite that support, it’s not clear how many users were on board, even after Aetna opened it up to all consumers and not just its membership. Aetna also emphasized that the program was exploratory in nature and that important lessons were learned in the process.
“CarePass has provided us valuable experience in important areas such as the use of open APIs for health data, helping people use their data to power health goals, and collaborating with innovative companies who are developing popular health care apps,” the statement to MobiHealth News said.
Aetna’s decision to nix CarePass may portend to a harsher reality than perhaps expected for insurers looking to tap into the mobile market, according to Daniel Ruppar, an mHealth and telehealth expert for consultancy and research firm Frost & Sullivan. But he, too, noted that the marketplace is young and “exploratory” for key stakeholders such as insurers and big pharma.
“The closure of Aetna’s CarePass illustrates the struggles companies in the digital health space are experiencing and facing in developing and sustaining users, and business models to scale” he said. “The mobile health platform is still a goal, especially in regards to solving problems in cross-application interoperability for users and vendors alike.
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“They’re also trying to determine what works in terms of scaled solutions outside of the rampant piloting which goes on for mobile and other progressive technology markets including telehealth and remote patient monitoring,” he added.
