Issue 036

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

Here’s what’s going on in employer-distributed digital health…

• E&O has confirmed the rumors that Optum-owned Rally Health is forming a “joint venture” with Red Ventures. The still unannounced JV might be the first step toward the media company acquiring Rally outright from Optum. (Bit of a head-scratcher: More on this as it develops.) Read E&O’s December 2020 UnitedHealth Report for more on Rally and UHG’s other digital health holdings.
• Omada Health just posted details for a 550-person “pragmatic RCT” it is setting up to assess how its hypertension program fares vs. usual care. Here’s an excerpt from the intervention group description: “In addition to usual care, participants will gain access to the Omada Program, an online program that offers lifestyle self-management support for hypertension. Participants will be assigned a health coach and a hypertension specialist via Omada’s secure app… The care team will support patients with lifestyle self-management support, adherence to their current medication regimen, improved BP control, and use of monitors for self-management of their BP and/or blood glucose values.” Omada is conducting the study with Stanford but it’s not yet recruiting. More details here.
• I reported this in a recent Fridays newsletter too, but while we are on the subject: Omada also posted details for another study in recent weeks. This one may help the company better understand how the addition of Abbott’s CGM improves the efficacy of Omada’s diabetes management program.
• Vida Health, which is one of the companies featured in this week’s big company benefits stack, made an interesting announcement earlier this month: It has moved beyond health coaching and added prescribing services to its physical and behavioral health programs.
• Meanwhile, Transcarent added a behavioral health offering powered by another unnamed partner. Remember: Transcarent also decided not to reveal its partner’s name for its recently unveiled oncology program. More on the new behavioral health program from Transcarent here.
• One more thing… In the last issue, when I wrote about Hinge Health’s new Women’s Pelvic Health program, which launched in April, I failed to mention that Hinge’s competitor Sword Health had launched a similar program, named Bloom, a month earlier.

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After Accolade-Comcast sever ties, Included Health swoops in as Comcast’s “personal health team”

In the last issue of this newsletter (Issue 035), I wrote about Accolade’s then-breaking news that it had lost its first and longtime customer: Comcast. At the time I wondered whether Included Health (formerly known as Grand Rounds) or Transcarent would pick up the account. Included Health actually already had a deal with Comcast to power its second opinions service, so they had a wedge.

Well, since then E&O has confirmed that Included Health is now the main navigator for Comcast employees.

Here’s Included’s pitch to Comcast employees — quoted from the custom landing page IH made for Comcast:

Included now seems to offer Comcast its full suite of services, including second opinions, physician finder, and phone or text-based chat support from Included’s care team. Comcast employees also have access to Doctor on Demand through Included Health, which rebranded when Grand Rounds and DoD merged.

However, Comcast has offered DoD as a covered benefit for some time — this isn’t new:

For more on Comcast’s digital health benefits stack, revisit Issue 031.

Big employer digital health stacks: Nokia and HII

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 32 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,
• General Electric,
• Comcast
• News Corp
• and Vanguard.

This week I dug into two big companies’ digital health benefits: Nokia and HII. As far as I know, these companies have nothing to do with each besides being Fortune 500s. Nokia has a surprisingly sparse stack of benefits, but I figured it might be worth including big companies like that when I come across them. So, I’ll pair them with others that have a more interesting lineup of digital health benefits vendors onboard in this and future issues.

Here’s a rundown of Nokia’s digital health benefits:

None.

Well, buried in one of the benefits-at-a-glance tables is a brief mention of virtual visits. There are no telemedicine companies named, which is unusual in most of these marketing materials — they’re often name-checked. Instead, Nokia just notes that the employee will have to pay $10 or $20 co-payment per virtual visit depending on their plan.

Nokia clearly tries to keep it simple, but it is working with a variety of partners: Nokia tapped Magellan for its EAP. UnitedHealthcare is its main insurance plan provider, and CVS Caremark is its PBM.

OK, let’s move on to HII, which stands for Huntington Ingalls Industries. HII is a large shipbuilding company that spun out of Northrop Grumman in 2011. Despiting spinning out of another Fortune 500, HII ranks on that list too. It’s a big-time military contractor. Here’s a look at HII’s benefits stack:

Alight for benefits navigation

HII works with Alight to host its benefits site. Alight also offers navigators to HII employees that they can hop on a call with to understand their benefits, verify coverage, transfer records, resolve billing errors, and schedule appointments.

Anthem’s app is another navigator tool

HII also pitches its health insurance provider, Anthem’s apps as navigators tool for employees:

and:

Virtual visits from Teladoc

HII promotes Teladoc heavily throughout its benefits materials. It pitches Teladoc as a care option for general medical needs, behavioral health, dermatology, tobacco cessation, and caregiver support. Teladoc typically charges HII employees $10 for most of these consultations, but the companies waved the employee pay portion for 2020 and 2021. It’s unclear if it continued for 2022.

Maven for virtual care and guidance for fertility, pregnancy, surrogacy and more

Vida for health coaching for chronic conditions and more

Rethink for kids with learning or behavior challenges

OK — that’s a wrap on Nokia’s and HII’s very different benefits stacks. Which big employer should I dig into next?

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