Issue 048

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

This edition of E&O Wednesdays includes the 54th BigCo digital health employee benefits stack analysis. If you would like a quick summary of what E&O found in its analysis of some of the first 40+ BigCo stacks, check out this searchable, sortable database right here. 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 benefits stack: T-Mobile revisited

Digital health companies love to boast how many Fortune 500 customers they have, but they aren’t always able to share which big companies offer their programs. That’s where E&O comes in. This recurring feature of E&O Wednesdays digs into a 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 dozens of big companies.

This searchable, sortable database over at the E&O site sums up the benefits stacks of more than 40 BigCos. Or, click any of the BigCo names below to read the newsletter that featured a full write-up for each:

• 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,
• General Electric,
• Comcast,
• News Corp,
• Vanguard,
• Nokia,
• HII,
• Fidelity,
• AbbVie,
• Dow Inc.,
• R.R. Donnelley & Sons,
• Target,
• Chipotle,
• W. W. Grainger,
• Tesla,
• Hitachi,
• Western Digital,
• AmerisourceBergen,
• Analog Devices,
• Citi,
• Xerox,
• Autodesk,
• ExxonMobil,
• Amazon,
• and Oracle.

This week I dug into the benefits stack of T-Mobile, which I first wrote back way back in September 2021. Many of the digital health programs that T-Mobile offered back then are still in place, but the company made a big move and swapped out one of its two main health insurance plan administrators soon after I wrote about them. As a result, there have been some changes to their digital health benefits. I’ll focus on those changes in this write-up.

In 2023 T-Mobile is partnered with UnitedHealthcare and Premera Blue Cross for plan administration. That was true in 2022 too. But, back in 2021, T-Mobile worked with Aetna and UHC instead. Dropping Aetna and adding Premera shook things up a bit — as detailed below.

What’s changed since 2021

When it worked with Aetna, T-Mobile offered virtual visits to employees via Teladoc. It also pitched Teladoc as an option for employees and their dependents on UHC plans. UHC members were also encouraged to check out the UHC app for other options but Teladoc was the only telemedicine company to get a name-check.

Now T-Mobile lists a slightly more differentiated group of virtual care options for its employees broken down by whether they are on Premera or UHC plans:

“Premera Blue Cross:

• Doctor on Demand: On-demand video chat for primary care (urgent care if you’re sick, prescriptions, chronic condition treatment, and more) or text and video access to a licensed therapist or psychiatrist.
• 98point6: On-demand text-based primary care with no appointment needed (checkups, urgent care if you’re sick, prescriptions, chronic condition treatment, and more).
• Talkspace: Text or video access to a licensed therapist or psychiatrist.
• Omada for Musculoskeletal: Video physical therapy you can do from anywhere—to diagnose and treat nearly all muscle and joint issues.

UnitedHealthcare:

• Teladoc: On-demand video chat for primary care (urgent care if you’re sick, prescriptions, chronic condition treatment, and more).
• Optum Virtual Care: On-demand video chat for primary care (urgent care if you’re sick, prescriptions, chronic condition treatment and more). New for 2023 – now including Walmart Health Virtual Care available in all 50 states.
• Amwell: On-demand video chat for primary care (urgent care if you’re sick, prescriptions, chronic condition treatment, and more) or behavioral health visits with licensed therapists or psychiatrists.
• Doctor on Demand: On-demand video chat for primary care (urgent care if you’re sick, prescriptions, chronic condition treatment, and more) or behavioral health visits with licensed therapists or psychiatrists.
• Talkspace: Text or video access for behavioral health visits with a licensed therapist or psychiatrist.
• Kaia: New for 2023! On-demand access to a pain relief app that offers a better way to help you manage aches and pains in your back, neck, shoulders, hips and knees.”

In the company’s 2021 benefits stack, UHC plan members had access to Talkspace and a variety of virtual visit providers via the UHC app. Most of the rest of the above is new, including the two musculoskeletal programs — T-Mobile had no digital MSK on offer back in 2021. And the two yellow-highlighted lines in the quoted text above are brand new for 2023.

T-Mobile offers a self-branded EAP apparently powered by UHC’s Rally health coaches

LiveMagenta isn’t new. T-Mobile had this in place back in 2021, but the big change between then and now is that the offering included just five free counseling sessions back then and now it includes ten.

T-Mobile’s LiveMagenta EAP seems to have removed all mentions of Sanvello recently

Here’s an interesting removal: UHC-owned Sanvello. LiveMagenta used to promote the app as a self-directed stress relief option. The rest of the UHC-powered offerings that I wrote about in Issue 021 are still in place, so I won’t rehash old ground here. Reread Issue 021 on the E&O site here.

OK, that’s a wrap on T-Mobile’s benefits stack. Which BigCo should E&O dig into next? Hit reply if you have a suggestion.

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.