Corporate Wellness

While wireless Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) will significantly expand the market for monitoring of patients with chronic illnesses, wireless technology will also allow RPM to dramatically expand in the area of wellness programs.  The potential approval of corporate wellness and RPM legislation on the state and federal level would create additional growth opportunities and financial benefits to the RPM industry.  Numerous states, including California, Minnesota, Vermont and Maine, have bills in their legislatures that include language emphasizing the importance of prevention and coordination of care for chronic illness, and if passed will greatly expand healthcare coverage.  

Preventative health programs, otherwise known as “wellness programs,” are activities that help to prevent chronic conditions.  These programs are viewed as a way of proactively reducing healthcare consumption, which results from chronic illnesses, by implementing preventative or self-managed healthcare programs.  These programs motivate their participants to engage in fitness programs, maintain balanced diets and encourage other health promoting activities in order to avoid costly chronic conditions in the future. 

Several large health plans have dramatically increased their investment in wellness programs in an effort to proactively manage costs.  Employers that self-insure are also putting greater focus on implementing and funding wellness programs.  It is estimated that as of 2006, 33 percent of firms with 200 or more employees offered fitness programs and/or on-site health clubs and 28 percent offered weight loss programs. 

Health plans and employers also continue to shift more of their healthcare costs to the consumer through the introduction of consumer directed health plans.  As a result, wellness programs will likely see continued growth, as participants have a vested financial interest in their long-term healthcare costs.