apple watch series 2
Posted on 09/27/2016 9:37:24 PM PDT by Swordmaker
Insurance company Aetna today announced a major health initiative centered on the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, which will see Aetna subsidizing the cost of the Apple Watch for both large employers and individual customers.
Starting this fall during open enrollment season, Aetna will subsidize "a signficant portion" of the Apple Watch cost and will offer monthly payroll deductions to cover the remaining cost.
Aetna also plans to provide Apple Watches at no cost to all of its nearly 50,000 employees as part of a wellness reimbursement program to encourage them to live healthier lives.
"We are thrilled that Aetna will be helping their members and employees take greater control of their health using Apple Watch," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "Aetna's new initiatives will be a powerful force toward creating better customer experiences in health care, and we look forward to working with Aetna to make them successful."
Aetna plans to develop several iOS health initiatives with "support" from Apple, debuting "deeply integrated" health apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch that will be available to all Aetna customers.
According to Aetna, these apps will "simplify the healthcare process" with features like care management to guide customers through a new diagnosis or a medication, medication reminders and tools for easy refills, quick contact with doctors, integration with Apple Wallet for paying bills and checking deductibles, and tools to help Aetna members get the most out of their insurance benefits.
Aetna's health-related apps will be available starting in early 2017, but the Apple Watch initiative will begin in 2016. Aetna has not detailed how much of the cost will be subsidized or which Apple Watch models will be available to subscribers.
Nothing insurance companies do ever stays voluntary. At some, it will be a condition of wearing it to get insurance and the cost of insurance will include how well you live up to the metrics.
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your body belong to us
Thanks for the heads up!
Absolutely.
“Starting this fall during open enrollment season, Aetna will subsidize “a signficant portion” of the Apple Watch cost and will offer monthly payroll deductions to cover the remaining cost.”
Of course your premium will go up correspondingly, and perhaps a bit more, to cover the free watches for the employees.
Where do I sign up?
Logan’s Run
Like the stock market, insurance is just “officially sanctioned” gambling.
Liberals using our insurance premiums to share the wealth with their friends.
Just reduce our premiums; we can buy our own Watch.
I don't know if they will. My girlfriend is insured through her employer with Aetna. They will provide her a $160 discount her portion of the monthly cost per month if she meets three out of five health test parameters. $80 per month for meeting two of the five. Since she meets four of the five, at $160 per month, that's $1920 a year she saves.
It's therefore beneficial to Aetna to get as many of their customers into that category by subsidizing the purchase of a $299 Apple Watch, then they've saved money a lot less expensively!
Just reduce our premiums; we can buy our own Watch.”
Would also like to see them raise the contract rates they are giving providers instead of cutting them again. Look for more and more doctors to leave their network. It won’t matter how much they reduce your premiums, you soon won’t have any network doctors to go to and many of their plans pay zero benefits to out-of-network doctors with more of these types of plans being forced on those needing insurance coverage.
crony crapola.
Life insurance is. You're gambling you're gonna die, the insurance company is gambling you're going to keep living and paying premiums.
Health insurance, no. Health insurance is pooling your risk with numerous other people who will pay if YOU get severely sick beyond your means to cover treatment.
On the other hand dental insurance is nothing of the kind. It's a prepaid, annually expiring benefit program. You are entitled to use every penny of the dental coverage you have every calendar year, but you can't get it refunded to you. The companies that provide this dental insurance KNOW that only one-third of people who have coverage will even see a dentist during that calendar year, and of those one-third, one-third will only use one-third of the pre-paid benefit they're entitled to use! Often that's because they really don't need to use it. . . Or they put it off.
The companies love that because they get to keep the excess prepaid. They do price the "insurance" product to account for that due to competition, but it's still not "insurance". At the end of the calendar year, the prepaid use counters and co-pays are all reset. So, if you have dental work that needs to be done and you have a dental plan, get the work done before December 31st! Use up what you're entitled to and you or your employer (really you) have earned and paid for before it expires, especially if you've already satisfied your deductible or co-pays.
Ayn Rand predicted this in Atlas Shrugged. She also penned an article warning against Medicare in the 60’s. She tried to warn Americans where these do gooder programs lead.
Once the inevitable happens and Insurance companies collapse, our health insurance company will be the Internal Revenue Service. The most feared agency in the U.S. I shudder to think how this will play out.
Wait a minute!
They are government subsidized!
This is where our money goes?
“They will provide her a $160 discount her portion of the monthly cost per month if she meets three out of five health test parameters”
Should only be her physician’s parameters, her’s the physician’s, their time-table, and no one else.
No, you're wrong. Not all health insurance is Obamacare. These are private plans that are not subsidized. They only have to include the mandatory features of Obamacare, but are provided as a employer benefit. Sorry. Look it up.
Her physician is a third party and has no say in the contract between her employer and Aetna. If they want to offer a discount for their beneficiaries who meet certain well defined medical benchmarks, the physician has no say in that discount. The insurance company gets a copy of the tests they pay for and there are some body biometrics they'll measure. If the beneficiary meets those criteria, they get the discount. If not, work on meeting them. They are things people can improve. If the beneficiary wants the physician to help meet those goals, Aetna will pay all normal costs as part of normal treatment.
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