New 61K Member Study: Personify Health Wellbeing Program Participants Had 14% Lower Healthcare Costs

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May 23, 2024, 09:00 ET

A Merative Health Insights analysis observed that engaged program participants took a more proactive approach to managing their wellbeing, potentially yielding health and cost benefits

PROVIDENCE, R.I., May 23, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Personify Health, the first and only platform company to bring health, wellbeing, and navigation solutions together, today announced the results from a new two-year study that showed the company's wellbeing offering drove notable improvements for employer clients and members. The independent study, conducted by the Merative Health Insights research team, found that engaged participants in the Personify Health wellbeing program had 14% lower healthcare costs year-over-year compared to industry benchmarks.

Merative Health Insights conducted the analysis of more than 61,000 members to evaluate the impact of member engagement on utilization, and medical and pharmacy costs, and compared data from five Personify wellbeing clients to industry benchmarks available through the Merative MarketScan^® Research Databases. The researchers' analysis concluded that employees and spouses who were engaged in the wellbeing program had more favorable utilization behaviors compared to a control group, including higher utilization of preventive services, lower inpatient care, and improved overall mental health.

"Today, holistic wellbeing is no longer a nice-to-have health benefit. It's proven to make a significant impact on health and should be a core part of every modern benefits package," said Jeffrey Jacques, MD, chief medical officer for Personify Health. "Personify's personalized, human-centered health approach inspires positive behaviors that improve health outcomes and reduce costs. This can have a long-term positive impact, such as increased use of preventive services, better medication compliance, and fewer high-risk, high-cost procedures for participants."

According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services, the U.S. will face a steep rise in healthcare costs from $4.7 trillion in 2023 to $7.2 trillion by 2031. The average per-employee cost of employer-sponsored health insurance rose 5.2% in 2023, reaching $15,797, with increases continuing this year, Mercer reports. These trends make it critical for employers to proactively manage spend while encouraging better health.

When members have the insights and motivation needed to make more impactful and cost-effective healthcare choices across inpatient, outpatient, and pharmacy, they can improve their chances of achieving better health and reducing health costs. The Merative Health Insights study showed that engaged participants in the Personify wellbeing program took a more proactive approach to preventive healthcare when compared to a non-engaged control population. These participants had:

38% lower pharmacy costs
29% lower inpatient costs
6% lower outpatient costs

When comparing engaged participants vs. the non-engaged control group, Merative Health Insights found that clients using Personify Health had:

23% more preventive visits, including cholesterol, mammogram, and cervical cancer screening rates
11% fewer acute admits

Despite the challenges of the years following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, program members also experienced positive mental and emotional health trends, including reduced growth rates in depression and anxiety costs and prevalence. Engaged participants experienced:

A three and 14 percentage point cost efficiency improvement in depression and anxiety, respectively, from 2021 to 2022
Lower growth rate of depression (three percentage points) and a lower growth rate in anxiety (six percentage points), indicating the wellbeing program drove positive mental and emotional health outcomes

"Not only does Personify recognize the value of wellbeing programs, but it understands the importance of measuring their effectiveness with trusted, independent data and analytics," said Casey Graves, general manager for Merative Health Insights and MarketScan. "The data doesn't lie. Personify Health's holistic approach helps them make progress towards the ultimate goal: improving people's lives."

Personify Health offers a suite of services through its innovative personalized health platform to optimize employers' investment in their members' health and wellbeing. Through data-driven, whole-person support, the Personify wellbeing program empowers members to proactively manage their health with highly personalized recommendations and content, including mental health, nutrition, sleep, movement, and exercise guidance. By addressing individual member needs holistically, the solution helps members get ahead of more serious illnesses that can lead to costly care.

Study Methodology
Merative Health Insights studied the impact of member engagement on healthcare costs and utilization for five clients of Personify Health who also use Merative's data warehousing services. They compared these clients to the Merative MarketScan^®, a benchmark database of approximately 4,500 customers and approximately 293 million lives.

These mid- to large-size employers, representing various industries like utilities, finance, manufacturing, and higher education, started the Personify Health wellbeing program in early 2021. Merative Health Insights analyzed data for each employer individually and as a group. The pooled group contained 61,202 individuals comprised of currently eligible employees and spouses with two years of continuous enrollment in their employer's medical and pharmacy benefit program.

To ensure a balanced cohort analysis, members were matched based on demographic characteristics, health risk, socioeconomic status, health plan type, and region of United States. To study program impact, Merative Health insights also compared a population meaningfully engaged in Personify's wellbeing program to a population that was not meaningfully engaged in Personify at any point during the two-year period. This analysis was in addition to the MarketScan database comparison.

More information about the Personify Health Wellbeing Program Study, conducted by Merative Health Insights, can be found in a new research paper, available here.

About Merative Health Insights
Merative Health Insights is a portfolio of healthcare data and analytics solutions, backed by 40 years of deep healthcare expertise. We provide trusted insights and proven expertise to help employers, health plans, life sciences organizations, and government agencies drive better health and financial outcomes. With market-leading solutions like Health Insights and MarketScan^®, we serve 7 of the top ten U.S. health plans, more than 40% of the Fortune 100, and the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. Learn more at merative.com/healthcare-analytics.

About Personify Health
Virgin Pulse and HealthComp have merged to become Personify Health, the company driven to engage and empower people to live healthier lives. By bringing industry-leading health plan administration, holistic wellbeing, and navigation solutions together, all in one place, we have created the industry's first and only personalized health platform. With decades of experience and global operations, we empower diverse and unique businesses – and diverse and unique people – to engage more deeply in health at a lower cost. Through our proprietary combination of data-driven personalization, science-backed methodology, and concierge-level clinical expertise, our end-to-end platform makes it easier to proactively address people's needs across their lives. With a personalized, holistic, and powerfully simple experience, we are redefining industry expectations and what it means to manage health. Learn more at www.personifyhealth.com.

SOURCE Personify Health