Humana sweetens its wellness plan with bigger patient rewards

Humana's new wellness program will offer movie tickets, hotel stays, airline flights and other rewards to members who exhibit healthy behavior. Experts say the move is part of an evolution by health plans to make it more valuable for their customers to be well.

The wellness program, HumanaVitality, is a joint venture with South Africa-based Discovery Holdings, which has its own stand-alone Vitality program offering similar rewards.

Shelly Wolff, health and productivity leader for human resources consulting firm Towers Watson, said Vitality's frequent flyer-style rewards program is in line with an industry trend to offer points and significant financial incentives for healthy behavior.

Employers and benefit experts continue to experiment to see what kind of rewards promote sustained healthy behavior -- daily exercise, healthy eating habits -- rather than short-term changes, she said.

The practice has evolved from offering trinkets like T-shirts and key chains to discounts on health insurance premiums and other valuable rewards such as the travel premiums that Vitality offers.

Vitality's 1.9 million members in 2010 redeemed points for more than 500,000 flights, almost 20,000 hotel stays and 3.5 million movie tickets, according to a news release announcing the deal.

Wolff said more than 85% of the large employers Towers Watson works with have wellness programs. About half of employers with a wellness program pay a health plan such as Humana to run it. The other half hire a separate wellness program vendor, Wolff said.

Health plans like Humana have been buying up or partnering with those small wellness programs, she said.

Under the terms of the Humana deal, the Louisville, Ky.-based insurer will create an entity, HumanaVitality. Discovery Holdings will own a 25% stake in HumanaVitality. Humana in turn will buy a 25% stake in Discovery Holdings.