IncentaHEALTH L.L.C. has taken a unique approach to absence management: It tries to make a substantial amount of overweight workers' bodies be absent.
IncentaHEALTH, Denver, a health care technology company, is bragging that its high-tech wellness program has helped Andrew Casper, a telecommunications manager at HealthONE, Denver, lose about 40 pounds since he joined the program just 6 months ago.
About 3,000 HealthONE employees are participating in the program.
IncentaHEALTH provides an online fitness guide, text message-based coaching, and kiosks that weigh and photograph program participants to create visual program reports.
IncentaHEALTH also provides cash rewards to encourage program participants to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight.
MANAGED CARE: THE NEXT GENERATION
Cigna Corp., Bloomfield, Conn. (NYSE:CI), has completed previously announced plans to acquire HealthSpring Inc., Nashville, Tenn. (NYSE:HS), for $3.8 billion.
HealthSpring has had about 340,000 Medicare Advantage enrollees, and CIGNA has had 45,000.
Cigna executives have said they made the deal to expand their Medicare Advantage operation and to benefit from HealthSpring's strategies for working with providers and holding down health care costs.
AUTISM
An insurance company arm of Blue Shield of California, San Francisco, has agreed tp provide coverage of behavioral therapy for autism as a medical benefit, according to officials at the California Department of Insurance.
California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has argued that the state's Mental Health Parity Law requires carriers in the state to coverage medically necessary behavioral therapies, including Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) therapy, for people with autism.
California Blue Shield is agreed to treat ABA therapy as a covered service and stop challenging the medical necessity of ABA therapy, officials say.
ABA therapy costs about $25,000 to $100,000 per patient per year.
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