Issue 031

Welcome back to E&O Wednesdays, the enrollment-focused digital health newsletter from Exits & Outcomes — for paying subscribers only. This every-other-Wednesday issue digs into digital health companies that sell to self-insured employers as well as others that rely on enrollment-based distribution for their digital health programs.

 E&O Wednesdays: Employers

Quick bullet before digging into Comcast’s stack below…

• As I’ve done in the past few E&O Wednesdays: Employers newsletters, I took a look at what changed in a big employer’s stack from a previous newsletter issue. This week I took a look back at Home Depot’s benefits stack for 2021 and what’s changed for 2022. Turns out: Nothing? So, this write-up in Issue 004 is still as relevant today as it was back in December 2020 when I first posted it.

Was this forwarded to you? Increasingly, E&O is a covered benefit from many forward-looking digital health-focused employers. Why not yours? Consider a Business or Enterprise subscription today. Click this link to become a paying subscriber (there are personal plans available too).

Big employer digital health stack: Comcast

Digital health companies love to boast how many Fortune 500 customers they have. This recurring feature of E&O Wednesdays digs into a different Fortune 500’s (or similarly-sized employer’s) digital health stack. So far, in past Wednesdays issues, I’ve written about the digital health benefits stacks of 30 big companies — click any of their names below to read that previously published Wednesdays newsletter over at the E&O site:

• Walmart,
• Activision Blizzard,
• JP Morgan Chase,
• The Home Depot,
• Boeing,
• 3M,
• Chevron,
• BorgWarner,
• Bank of America,
• UnitedHealth Group,
• Costco,
• eBay,
• McKesson,
• Ford,
• Dell,
• AT&T,
• Disney,
• Novartis,
• Red Bull,
• VMware,
• T-Mobile/Sprint,
• Adobe,
• Phillips 66,
• Cox Enterprises,
• Wells Fargo,
• PayPal,
• Facebook,
• Sony Pictures,
• General Mills,
• and General Electric.

This week I dug into E&O’s most frequently requested big employer stack: Comcast’s. With a lot of help from E&O readers, but two, in particular, helped out quite a bit, I was able to cobble together the benefits stack below. (Thanks again — you know who you are.)

Caveats: This is mostly reflective of the company’s 2021 benefits lineup, and it might have changed for 2022. I’m also not 100 percent sure this is a comprehensive scoping of the company’s offerings (so let me know if you are aware of any tweaks or changes for this year, ok?)

Here’s what I found:

Accolade for health navigation, benefits administration and more:

Comcast relies on Accolade as its benefits hub. This includes Accolades core service offerings of care and benefits navigation. Just before its IPO, Accolade revealed that Comcast remains its most important customer:

Last month Accolade reported that for the three months ending November 2021, Comcast only accounted for 9 percent of the company’s revenue. As Comcast’s benefits hub, Accolade also serves as the middleman for Comcast’s other digital health benefits partners.

Grand Rounds still powering second opinions for Comcast?

While Accolade’s Health Assistants help Comcast employees and their families navigate their benefits and the healthcare system, as far as I can tell Grand Rounds (now Included Health) still counts Comcast as a customer of its expert medical opinions offering. Remember, Accolade bought Grand Rounds competitor 2nd.MD last year and Grand Rounds has moved more into Accolade’s turf in recent years too. I wonder if Comcast will continue to offer Grand Rounds or switch to Accolade’s 2nd.MD? Hard to imagine these two can co-exist in the same stack much longer, right?

Virtual visits from Doctor on Demand and Teladoc

Comcast fully covers virtual visits via Doctor on Demand (which merged with Grand Rounds last year to form Included Health):

I wasn’t able to find as much evidence of the availability of Teladoc to Comcast employees, but I got a tip that it was. It also might just be available through Comcast’s health plan partner Independence Blue Cross, which offers a virtual visits service powered by Teladoc for when members are traveling internationally.

Diabetes treatment from Virta Health

This one is no secret: Virta has promoted its relationship with Comcast in webinars and patient testimonials in the past.

Comcast is offering Wondr Health for weight loss

Unclear if this is just a pilot from 2021 or an ongoing benefit, but Comcast did offer Wondr Health’s weight loss program to its employees in mid-2021. Check out the onboarding video from the campaign here.

Rethink Benefits for pediatric behavioral care

Rethink, which describes itself as a “provider of research-based resources to inspire and empower individuals with developmental disabilities and those who support,” is available to Comcast employees with children who have special needs. Interestingly, Rethink looks to be rebranding as “Whil” after acquiring a meQuilibrium competitor by that name recently. As noted below, meQuilibrium is another Comcast benefit:

meQuilibrium for stress management and resilience training

Here’s how meQuilibrium suggests Comcast HR pitches its offerings:

Comcast’s EAP is ComPsych, which includes DynamiCare for SUD

One of the programs that ComPsych makes available to Comcast employees as a fully covered benefit is DynamiCare‘s substance use disorder treatment program:

Big Health’s digital therapeutic Sleepio for insomnia

Comcast has offered employees Sleepio for years. Here’s a description from Big Health:

Comcast also pays for Freespira for panic disorders and PTSD

In press releases Freespira often lists Comcast as one of the self-insured employers that pay for its prescription digital therapeutic:

Phew. OK, that’s a wrap on Comcast’s digital health benefits stack.  Some of these stacks are easier to figure out than others (so no promises), but let me know which company’s digital health benefits you’d like to learn more about by hitting reply to this email. If you happen to work at a Fortune 500 company (and I know that’s a lot of you), then please send me your benefits information.

Links to E&O’s reports, databases, newsletters

Click below for dedicated pages for each of those categories:

• Read through the long-form E&O research reports here.
• Search and sort the E&O databases here.
• Skim more than 200 past issues of E&O newsletters here.