What Do Consumers and AI Think Of Omada Health?

Omada Health was one of the early digital health companies to understand the value of clinical validation of health tech — starting with prediabetes. Subsequently, the company has made strides scoring wins like getting full recognition by the CDC and thereby for becoming the largest provider — both in person and virtual — of the agency’s National Diabetes Prevention Program. Along the way, it has also garnered adoption amongst leading health systems, plans, PBMs and employers. Omada Health now has digital health programs in diabetes, heart failure, MSK and GLP-1s.

Success in the B2B world, however, does not always translate into success in the consumer world. So how does the average person view Omada?

A quick Google search shows that the San Francisco health tech company has a total of 62 reviews with an average of 2.6 stars out of 5. On Apple’s App store, the company fares much better. With more than 88,000 ratings and reviews, the company gets 4.7 stars. On the Better Business Bureau, site, there is only one review, which is a one-star, and three consumer complaints.

Let’s start with the recent positive reviews. For instance, this review from an Apple device user last week said:

Excellent way to get & stay on track: Omada Health has done wonders to help me manage my health. I personally value the ability to converse with my health coach in a timely fashion. I’ve found there’s no question she cannot answer because she’s willing to take the time to dig for it. Omada’s use of charts and graphs keeps me motivated.

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Others report the program helped them to finally get to a healthy weight. Here’s a review from June 25:

Silent Best Friend: Omada is a combination of a Best Friend who is watching but never judges. Omada gently reminds me to weigh in. The scale encourages me make healthy food choices. Medication tracking keeps me in compliance with prescribed doses. If I want to correspond I can, but there’s no pressure. If I want to contribute to a group, I can. Without Omada, I would still be more than 100 pounds overweight. It is taking a long time. But I have never been this successful before. Thank you.

Acclamation!

Pretty glowing stuff, but what about the not-so-complimentary ones?

The recent negative reviews by iOS users can be be placed into two different buckets: Tech support issues to which Omada usually responds, and more structural complaints that seem to be associated with a program design that members feel hurt them in a variety of ways. Generally there’s no response to consumers, but sometimes there is. Here’s a one-star review from August 8:

So frustrated. I was emailed through my work email that I qualified to sign up for Omada for free. I signed up and was welcomed and started my plan. Things were going great, until I checked my HSA account. Without notice, I was charged $193.00 for signing up! Nowhere in any of the 10 emails was I notified I wasn’t qualified to do this program for free. Now I can’t even get a response back from Omada. Worst program ever. Who charges that much for a stupid scale and a coach that check in once a month. Literally do not do this program. I’m so frustrated.

JBlaze14

Ironically enough, an Omada representative did respond to this review with a rather confounding reply — nearly word for word matching responses given to users complaining of glitchy tech.

Developer Response: Hi, thank you for providing your feedback. It sounds like you may be experiencing a technical issue that we can help you resolve! Please free to contact us at [email protected] so we can help you out.

Other negative reviews both on iOS and Google center on missed medications. Employers/insurers are forcing people to enroll in Omada’s program as a prerequisite for getting access to drugs they need like GLP-1s and Omada has been late in getting them signed up — or so the complaints go. Here’s one particularly scathing Google review from three months ago:

Awful client service, non-responsive, no accountability to a patient’s well being, as a result of poor handling and non responsiveness, I have missed over 2 weeks of my medication. Patients are unfortunately being steered to mandatory set up with Omada by their employers, insurers and PBMs, and it [sic] patient care continuity is being impacted and their health negatively affected. I am baffled by the decision to include Omada to lengthen the process for patient care delivery and claims processing. If you’re lucky enough not to be forced to use this service, avoid at all costs.

– Darran Wee

Delays are integral to healthcare — I think many consumers are resigned to it. Still, in this world of Tiktok and YouTube Shorts, instant gratification is what consumers are looking for. Not to mention that if a healthcare service tied to medication access is thrust upon unwilling consumers, the least that vendors can do is to set up quickly with zero disruption to their care regimen.

I asked Omada CEO Sean Duffy about this delay and this is how he responded in an email:

“This would likely be related to our work with ESI’s EncircleRx. We’ve found if they reach out to our member support team, we can generally help guide them quickly.”

Duffy is one of the more thoughtful digital health CEOs but this answer felt a bit tone deaf, especially given how many complaints say that reaching an Omada customer service representative is tough because no phone numbers are available to call and emails go unanswered.

Other complaints relate to being asked by employers to sign up only to be told that they are ineligible. For example people with diabetes, say they have been told they are ineligible for the diabetes program. In an email, Duffy said: “We do support people with diabetes — what you’re probably seeing is someone who wanted our care for diabetes, but their employer/health plan has not yet elected to work with us (as you know, we offer 4 care areas and our customers can pick 1, all or any permutation based on their needs).”

Well then, shouldn’t the program interface that consumers are viewing be customized to the employee or insured member so that they only get to apply for what they are eligible? If customer is king, their time should be viewed as invaluable.

All the negative reviews notwithstanding, its important to note that many people have used Omada’s program over time and numerous organizations are customers. Duffy wouldn’t reveal exactly how many active users Omada currently has but said that it has enrolled more than 1 million users over time. He added that Omada has more than 2,000 customers — these are plans, providers, employers, PBMs, and include entities like Intermountain Health, Express Scripts, Costco and the State of Alaska.

It’s also important to consider that my analysis is flawed by the very fact that I am flesh and blood and can’t read 88,000-plus ratings on iOS (or even the 62 on Google, pardon my laziness). So what does artificial intelligence tell us about how customers view Omada Health? I asked that very question to ChatGPT. Sadly, the AI engine didn’t review iOS opinions but based its answer on reviews left on the following four sites: Bing, ReliefSeeker, TrustRadius and Comparably. Here’s the relevant graph from its 3-paragraph answer:

Customer satisfaction with Omada Health is relatively high, with 78% of users considering themselves loyal to the platform. People value the personalized coaching and the convenience of remote monitoring through connected devices, though the overall product quality has been rated around 3.5 out of 5. Users from healthcare-related industries tend to rate it more favorably than those from the tech industry​

There you have it folks: 2.6 stars on Google, 4.7 stars on iOS and 3.5 stars on ChatGPT.

Photo: Warchi, Getty Images