Why Healthcare Providers Should Incentivize Fitness Tracking
- Wearable technology adoption has been growing in recent years with the healthcare industry being one of the biggest beneficiaries. Products like the Fitbit and Nike+ are helping patients track their fitness and smartphones provide an all-in-one living health record that can make any doctor’s visit less stressful.
With Apple finally entering the wearable technology landscape last month, many experts believe it could be the jolt needed to push the devices further into the mainstream. While the technology giant does have a track record of introducing new devices and services that take off and become industry standards, like revolutionizing digital music through iTunes, there could be a bigger player in wearable technology.
As mentioned above, healthcare is one of the biggest partners of wearable technology. The Apple Watch features two apps that monitor health and fitness and is paired with the Health App that is part of iOS 8 to track every aspect of medical care. However, instead of walking into an Apple store for a device, doctors and health care providers may have a bigger say on wearable tech adoption.
A recent study by TechnologyAdvice Research polled over 900 U.S. adults about general fitness tracking habits. The results show that 25.1 percent use either a fitness tracker or smartphone app to track their health, weight or exercise. The two most common reasons for not tracking fitness of health were lack of interest (27.2 percent) and cost (17.7).
Why healthcare providers need to take notice
It was discovered that there is significant opportunity for both healthcare and health insurance providers to incentivize fitness tracking. Healthcare providers will gain access to accurate, patient-generated data that can be automatically synced with a patient portal. This helps better monitor high risk patients and improve outcomes. Health insurance companies can use the devices to create more accurate risk profiles and adhere to changing regulations.
According to the numbers, 48.2 percent of non-tracking adults said they would use a device if it were provided by their physician and 57.1 percent said they would be more likely to use one if it meant lower health insurance premiums. Additionally, 44.2 percent said better health advice from doctors would be an incentive.
These devices help provide an unbiased overview of a patient’s health which provides a positive ripple through the entire process.
“If healthcare providers help make fitness tracking devices (or apps) available to their patients or work with health insurance providers to encourage device usage through discounted premiums, they should be able to significantly increase the number of self-tracking adults in the U.S.,” the report stated.
One of the biggest opportunities is to attract younger adults that are now required to be insured and are likely looking to buy for the first time. This group is more receptive to technology than their older peers and an incentive for these devices could be enough to get them to sign up with a given provider or visit a specific doctor.
“Health insurance companies have greater means to subsidize the cost of such devices, and stand to benefit from the collected data in the form of better risk profiles,” the report reads. “If healthcare providers worked in tandem with health insurance companies, both stakeholders could benefit from the collected population health data.”
