Health IT, Hospitals, Payers

UnitedHealthcare upgrades Health4Me app to include wearables integration, mobile payments

UnitedHealth today unveiled a series of interesting upgrades to its Health4Me app, including mobile payments […]

UnitedHealth today unveiled a series of interesting upgrades to its Health4Me app, including mobile payments and integration into wearables.

It’s yet another expansion of the app, which until the middle of last year was for members only. In July, UnitedHealthcare opened it to anyone who wanted to check healthcare pricing. This moved Health4Me into the price transparency landscape.

These new additions speak to other dimensions: a mix of education, data integration and simplified payments. UnitedHealthcare will watch to see how often its mobile app users click into these options before expanding on them, said Craig Hankins, UnitedHealthcare’s vice president for consumer engagement products.

The Health4Me app has been downloaded 1.2 million times, with about 500,000 of those downloads happening last year, Hankins said. UnitedHealthcare members are still doing most of the downloading despite opening it to the public in July, Hankins said.

About 700,000 customers used the app in 2014, Hankins said. That means roughly 3.5 percent of the potential 20 million eligible UnitedHealthcare customers used the app last year.

There are four main updates today, according to UnitedHealthcare:

  • Mobile payments using a credit card, debit card, health savings account or bank account
  • Document management and education: Both in consumer claims and medical expenses for tax reporting
  • Wearables and fitness tracker integration
  • Wellness television: Videos from UHC.TV will go straight to the device

Hankins said UnitedHealthcare is eager to grab every single “mobile moment” when customers could use their phones to check prices, pay bills or use other features in the app.

Imagine someone sitting in their doctor’s office, discussing getting an MRI and the patient could quickly check if the cheapest place to do so is at the hospital or a clinic nearby. Then, that patient could check his health savings account to make sure there’s enough money to cover the cost.

Hankins brushed off concerns about bad timing with new payment options because of the Anthem data breach, noting that these are secure services that have been handled digitally through UnitedHealthcare’s site, MyUHC.com, for some time.

In its release, UnitedHealthcare stated it is the only national health plan to offer payment capabilities integrated with claims and benefits information.

“We take security very seriously,” Hankins said. “Working with our partner InstaMed, as we have for more than 18 months with the online version of bill payment, the mobile version in Health4Me follows the same security protocols. Thousands of UnitedHealthcare consumers have already used the service to pay medical bills since 2013.”

Integrating wearables creates huge opportunities to gather data and, in the longer term, use that information to sculpt special incentives and rewards for UnitedHealthcare customers. Fitness tracker data gathered by the Health4Me app will be stored by UnitedHealthcare systems that measure biometric information. Also, providers will be able to see that information as well.

But UnitedHealthcare won’t use that information “out of the gate,” Hankins said. Instead, UnitedHealth will watch to see how many of its customers connect their fitness trackers to the app.

“We’re really interested in seeing who is using that tool with the rest of their healthcare benefits,” he said.

Moving past pricing data is important. You would never have said this three years ago, but healthcare transparency is becoming almost an expected, commodity feature for the apps and digital tools of healthcare payers, providers and advocacy groups. Regional insurance companies, non-profit groups and, of course, for-profit digital upstarts all include pricing information.

So how are providers going to get a competitive edge and create digital tools that could either create efficiencies and cut costs for themselves or be so attractive they could be a tipping point for a self-insured employer or individual on a healthcare exchange to pick that insurance company?

UnitedHealthcare wants to continue to gather more users around its app. “The usual user (of the app) is more mobile-oriented, slightly younger and healthier – they’re the more frequent users,” Hankins said. “But we’re also seeing more – not necessarily younger – but people dealing with more issues with their health.

“That’s our broader goal. The app is just one means by which to support consumer enrollment in UnitedHealth coverage.

“Transparency,” he added. “Is table stakes.”

 

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