Dive Brief:
- CVS Health has added five new digital health offerings to a program for its pharmacy benefit management clients meant to help them simplify contracting and lower spend.
- Livongo Health, Hinge Health, Hello Heart, Torchlight and Whil are now available for CVS' PBM clients to use, in addition to Sleepio, a personalized digital sleep program and the first participating program when the service launched in 2019.
- The five digital health platforms underwent "rigorous clinical, data security and business evaluation," including end-to-end user testing, prior to being selected for the program, called Point Solutions Management, CVS said. CVS plans to continue expanding the program into weight loss, women's health, metabolic health and mental health, among other categories like social determinants of health.
Dive Insight:
Digital health programs are all the rage, though their efficacy in improving health or lowering cost is unclear. The average employer offers 14 digital health tools through its insurance plans or a third-party vendor, according to health benefits platform Castlight, but, though adoption seems to be on the rise, wearable devices and telemedicine have lagged.
CVS Caremark launched its vendor benefit management service in June last year, allowing its employer and insurance plan clients to use nontraditional, digital and non-digital tools to improve employer and member health. It's first third-party vendor was Sleepio, a cognitive behavioral therapy-based digital program aimed at tracking and improving sleep sold by Big Health.
"Plan sponsors increasingly see the value in health care point solutions for improving workforce productivity, satisfaction and overall well-being," Sree Chaguturu, CMO of CVS Caremark, said in a Wednesday statement.
The five new solutions range the gamut from chronic condition management to caregiver support.
- Hello Heart is an FDA-approved blood pressure monitor, coupled with an app that tracks blood pressure, weight and fitness to trigger alerts for hypertension and reminders for medication adherence.
- Hinge Health is a musculoskeletal program that coaches members on how to exercise and manage their chronic back or joint pain.
- Livongo is an integrated chronic care management platform for diabetes, hypertension, weight management and other conditions.
- Torchlight provides support for caregivers, including education, finance, health and legal education.
- Whil is a digital training program for stress minimalization and mindfulness.
Caremark will provide member eligibility and real-time billing verification to its clients once the products are adopted, it said.
Some of these vendors have a previous relationship with the healthcare behemoth. Livongo, for example, has worked with CVS since 2017 in its Transform Diabetes Care Program, but Livongo said it hoped its inclusion in the alternate contracting path could expand its membership base, which currently includes roughly 800 clients, including 30% of Fortune 500 companies. Livongo went public in July.
CVS rival Express Scripts, owned by Cigna, also offers a digital health formulary for its clients, announced roughly a month before CVS' though the formulary didn't go live until this year. Like CVS, the goal is to reduce administrative burden on plans by selecting proven digital health offerings itself and lower costs through bulk purchasing of digital health products.
There's some overlap between the two: Livongo for example. Express Scripts' list of 15 products announced late last year also includes chronic care management heavyweights (and Livongo rivals) Omada Health and Propeller Health.