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Apple Watch Owners With UnitedHealthcare Can Earn Awards for Being Active

Knew this was coming. Its similar to car insurance apps that track your driving and give you additional discounts for "good driving" AKA under the speed limit etc. Also a great way for them to show or disprove certain types of liability in accidents.

While I am against this and find it to be overly intrusive, you give your health insurance company to all your health services like doc visits etc.

Sharing healthy info and choosing not to share certain time frames of what an individual would consider bad or declining info doesn't seem like a bad idea.

Now, if once you opt in you cannot opt out or they use opting out as a negative then its a huge issue.

At the end of the day, I think they will eventually use it as a way to deny claims and increase shareholder value. From that point of view I'm strongly against it.
 
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deeddawg said:
Define "clean bill of health" in terms which don't involve "some persons ideal of health"... i.e. who is giving that clean bill of health and what particular objective criteria are they using?
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A doctor saying “you’re completely health other than the number on the scale” seems like a pretty obvious answer here, no?
 
At the end of the day, this is a for-profit company incentivizing you to voluntarily surrender personal information about yourself. When they say “promote a healthy lifestyle”, what they really mean is “promote a healthy profit margin.”

I don’t begrudge the pursuit of wealth (or health), but I also know that insurance companies are like law enforcers: anything you say can and will be used against you. Their best customers are the ones that don’t make claims.

If they pay out $10mm in incentives, you can be sure that overall rates are going up $50mm and this is a well disguised “olive branch” to those who want to defray part of the increase.
 
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It will be made up for by increased costs and probably attempted penalties down the line for the insured.
 
surfzen21 said:
Do they have their own app that records these steps?
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Yes they have a specific app (called ActiveFit) which records your gps location for the gym and syncs with Apple health for the steps. Yeah I know I'm giving up my gym location and health info to my insurance company, not a big deal to me. But you can turn the gps tracking and health tracking off and manually report each visit/step day. You can even just take a picture of you working out as proof, that worked really well during Covid when I was locked to my home gym.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Yes they have a specific app (called ActiveFit) which records your gps location for the gym and syncs with Apple health for the steps. Yeah I know I'm giving up my gym location and health info to my insurance company, not a big deal to me. But you can turn the gps tracking and health tracking off and manually report each visit/step day. You can even just take a picture of you working out as proof, that worked really well during Covid when I was locked to my home gym.
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The GPS tracking would be a no-go for me.

Glad you can turn it off though.
 
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dragoon2745 said:
My reaction was this is a good thing but I'm glad I'm reading the comments now.
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It is a good thing. Don't let the detractors dissuade. It, like anything, has the potential to be abused but this can not only provide money to some people it can also help people be healthier. Yes, that can reduce insurance costs for the company but it also helps the individuals doing it. This can have long-term health benefits and save people hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical costs over a lifetime (in the U.S.).
 
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Slippery slope trap. Don't fall for discounts that gather driving habits in your car either.
 
deeddawg said:
Isn't that where the steps/activity tracking comes in?



Define "clean bill of health" in terms which don't involve "some persons ideal of health"... i.e. who is giving that clean bill of health and what particular objective criteria are they using?
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This is (was?) typically handled by breaking health insurance down into groups by age and major obvious health factors like smoking. There's a whole science behind the statistics of how long people will live and their odds of getting sick.
 
drumcat said:
Insurance companies with perverted incentives are dangerous.

What happens when they turn down a procedure that's needed because "it won't have a successful outcome given the patient's wellness compliance"?
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What happens. They get sued. If in an employee group plan. How treat employees different based on their use of the app or not. Really no proof that a person was the one that the app captured. This could be manipulated in someones advantage too. But yes, should be very careful to what sign up for and their terms.
 
Ahhh, yes, another insurance company looking to find another reason to proactively raise premiums for many of their customers while touting it as a way that customers can be awarded.

I fell for that scheme about a decade ago when Progressive Auto Insurance was touting their thing that plugs into a car's OBD port as a great way to lower your premium. Well, I was in for a surprise when my premium increased quite a bit a few months after I plugged that thing into my car. When I called to inquire, the agent proceeded to tell me exactly how many hard brakes and quick accelerations I had done and told me that was the reason for the premium increase.

I promptly removed that thing from my car's OBD port, sent it back to Progressive, and changed insurance companies.
 
Marbles1 said:
Horrific precedent for any country where private healthcare is the norm. Even those with state funded universal healthcare should be wary of this.

We should be looking after the sick. We should also encourage people to live healthy lives. That's it.

It'll be blood tests next and taxes on certain measures of being overweight.
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Why should healthy people subsidize people who are fat, smoke or get injured while doing stuff like subway surfing? I see people are afraid that the line between what is fine and what not may shift over time but I think it's great to encourage people to quit smoking and get more active. After all the insurance makes money if you do live longer and happier. Its a win win situation.
 
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MacWiz_007 said:
It's also unfair that I workout six days a week and have a clean bill of health, yet I have to pay the same price for health insurance as the people I work with that are 200 pounds overweight and never workout. While I wouldn't sign up for this, at least they are offering folks a way to save some money/get something back for making healthy choices.
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And you’ll never be in a disabling car accident or just grow old right?
 
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SFjohn said:
And you’ll never be in a disabling car accident or just grow old right?
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There is a difference between being disabled and being able-bodied and having unhealthy eating habits and not working out. Also, disabled folks can eat a healthy diet and most can workout in some capacity. You know this, so I am not sure why you are bringing this up. We all grow old, but that is not an excuse for being unhealthy and grossly overweight.
 
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