UnitedHealthcare, a UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) company, launched new and enhanced digital health resources to help employers access and understand health care data, save on premiums and encourage employees to more effectively use their health benefits.
The enhancements are in time for this year's open-enrollment period for employers and employees, which for most companies occurs during the fall for plans starting Jan. 1, 2019. The new and enhanced resources include:
- Health Plan Manager: This interactive tool enables employers to analyze and understand health data, providing an analytics-driven roadmap to help improve health outcomes, mitigate expenses, and empower employees to take charge of their health.
UnitedHealthcare's Health Plan Manager provides employers with a data-driven road map to implement clinical management and employee-engagement programs, helping improve health outcomes and reduce care costs.
The online resource – now available to employers with self-funded health plans with as few as 100 enrolled employees – helps employers implement clinical management and employee-engagement programs based on comprehensive analytics applied to various data sources, including aggregate medical and prescription claims, demographics, and clinical and well-being information.
For instance, the platform enabled a self-funded national retailer to analyze its out-of-network claims for back surgeries, isolating the area and factors contributing most to these costs, and then launching an educational campaign that achieved estimated savings of nearly $1 million*.
- Digital Onboarding: Available to employers with 101 to 3,000 employees at no additional cost, Digital Onboarding is an online process that makes plan enrollment more personalized, and enables people to select relevant clinical, wellness or financial programs such as behavioral health, weight loss, pregnancy support and others. Recent and upcoming enhancements include year-round enrollment (for new hires or for qualifying life events), expanded support for third-party specialty products, and information about prescription drug coverage.
- PreCheck MyScript: This technology enables doctors and patients to view precise medication costs in real time and obtain prior authorization before leaving the exam room due to its direct integration into a physician's existing Electronic Medical Record platform. This may help encourage the selection of lower-cost drug alternatives, such as generics, or by changing the pharmacy selected to fill the prescription. Since its launch in 2017, PreCheck MyScript has provided doctors with preauthorization capabilities and formulary information more than 8 million times, resulting in a change to a lower-cost drug more than 20 percent of the time when a lower-priced clinically equivalent alternative is offered.
UnitedHealthcare's PreCheck MyScript enables prescribers to view precise medication costs and obtain prior authorization in real time helping make access to prescription drugs more convenient and affordable.
PreCheck MyScript will be available to nearly 20,000 more care providers this fall. Nearly 115,000 prescribing physicians have already used PreCheck MyScript through various electronic medical record (EMR) platforms. By the end of 2019, the app is expected to reach 80 percent of UnitedHealthcare network physicians who prescribe electronically.
- Personalized Claims Videos: Nationwide, people who are enrolled in UnitedHealthcare individual and employer-sponsored plans can view personalized claims videos to help them better understand their benefits and what they owe following a covered medical service. The brief, personalized claims videos provide a step-by-step breakdown that shows exactly how each claim was processed, what their plan covered and how much is owed. Since launching earlier this year, the program has generated strong user-satisfaction ratings and has reduced the need for follow-up calls by 30 percent.
These types of online resources are important for employers and employees. According to a recent UnitedHealthcare survey, 20 percent of Americans with health benefits say they are unprepared for health care open enrollment; and low health literacy costs the U.S. health care system upwards of
$238 billion per year1.
"Employers and employees want a more simplified and personalized health care experience, starting from plan enrollment and continuing throughout the person's journey toward better health," said Rebecca Madsen, UnitedHealthcare chief consumer officer. "UnitedHealthcare invests more than $3 billion annually in data, technology and innovation to help our customers and plan participants better understand and make the most of their health benefits, improve their health and well-being, and reduce their health care costs."
About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people live healthier lives and making the health system work better for everyone by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. In the United States, UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1.2 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,500 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. The company also provides health benefits and delivers care to people through owned and operated health care facilities in South America. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified health care company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @UHC on Twitter.
*Cost-savings results are averaged for illustrative purposes, and health outcomes are not guaranteed.
1U.S. Department of Education National Assessment of Adult Literacy
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