MetroPlus Health Plan Announces New Member Engagement and Rewards Program

Business Wire

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- MetroPlus Health Plan announced today the introduction of its member engagement and rewards program. The MetroPlus Healthy Rewards Program is designed to engage members in specific healthy activities that improve their health, quality of life, and well-being.

The new program encourages MetroPlus members to earn reward points for completing healthy activities. Members have already started receiving informational material about the program and can call or log on to MetroPlus’s website to learn more. Members can use the reward points they earn to order healthy items from the MetroPlus Healthy Rewards Catalog. As individuals complete their healthy activities, they will be able to visit the Healthy Rewards Portal via smartphone, tablet, or desktop to track their activities, redeem their reward points, and access personalized wellness tools and resources. The program also provides support to members over the phone.

Members can earn rewards when they take steps to manage their diabetes, attend pre- and postpartum visits for a healthy pregnancy, take an annual Health Risk Assessment, and more. Many of the healthy activities rewarded through this program are tied specifically to chronic conditions. For example, a person who has diabetes can receive a reward for completing a HbA1c test to measure blood sugar level, or a person who has asthma can earn points by simply refilling their long-term asthma controller. Other rewards are tied to preventive health activities, such as visiting a primary care provider within 60 days of joining MetroPlus or participating in the Step-Up Walking Challenge.

The program is administered by Finity, a leading health technology company. Finity’s Health Intelligence Platform uses ongoing, multimedia engagement and gamification through reward points to encourage members to participate in healthy activities. All rewards are tied to specific activities that can be easily tracked and measured. The closed-loop technology tracks member engagement by medium and activity, and evolves based on behavior. This targeted engagement methodology is proven effective to improve member health, increase compliance, and lower health care costs.

The rewards that members can earn cover a wide spectrum of popular items – ones that promote physical activity (e.g., baseball mitts, basketballs, quilted sleeping bags, and activity trackers), others focused on nutrition and health (blenders, digital thermometers, polarized sunglasses), others for relaxation and fun (deluxe art sets), and still others for new families (boppy pillows, baby strollers, and car seats), plus much more. The higher the points earned, the more valuable the reward redeemed will be.

“These rewards provide an easy and fun way to assist our members in their efforts to stay healthy and allow those enrolled with MetroPlus to reach their individualized health goals,” said Seth Diamond, Chief Operating Officer of MetroPlus. “The program is also cost-effective. By keeping members healthy today, we avoid more costly interventions later.”

“This is the most innovative engagement and rewards program in New York City,” said Alexandra MacDonald, Executive Vice President of Population Health Management at Finity. “Using the health intelligence we gather for MetroPlus members, we can personalize engagement to maximize health behavior change. This results in high program participation, significant cost savings, and increased prevention and compliance.”

“One of our most important goals is to improve not only our member’s health, well-being and satisfaction, but also the member experience with the plan itself,” Diamond said. “We are confident our new Healthy Rewards Program is a powerful way to help achieve that goal.”

About MetroPlus Health Plan

Since 1985, MetroPlus Health Plan has built a reputation for providing access to affordable, quality health care to eligible New Yorkers. A wholly-owned subsidiary of NYC Health + Hospitals, the nation’s largest public health system, MetroPlus is the plan of choice for over half a million New Yorkers. In addition to Medicaid Managed Care, MetroPlus offers Child Health Plus; several Medicare Plans; a Special Needs Plan (SNP) for people with HIV and their families; a Long-Term Managed Care Plan; MetroPlus Gold, a plan exclusively for New York City employees; FIDA and HARP plans, and more than five dozen NY State of Health Marketplace products. The company’s robust network of primary care doctors and specialists includes many independent community providers. Culturally sensitive, and fluent in more than 40 languages, MetroPlus staff is as diverse as the great city it serves. Visit us at metroplus.org and join the conversation at facebook.com/metroplushealth and twitter @metroplushealth.

About Finity, Inc.

Finity is a leading provider of Health Intelligence Solutions. The Finity platform includes integrated population health management portals, multimedia member engagement and comprehensive reward program management. Clients include State Medicaid agencies and private health insurance companies. Finity provides the most proven-effective member engagement and rewards program in the industry to millions of health plan members across the country.

About NYC Health + Hospitals

NYC Health + Hospitals is the largest public health care system in the nation. We are a network of 11 hospitals, trauma centers, neighborhood health centers, nursing homes, and post-acute care centers. We are a home care agency and a health plan, MetroPlus. Our health system provides essential services to more than one million New Yorkers every year in more than 70 locations across the city’s five boroughs. Our diverse workforce of more than 42,000 employees is uniquely focused on empowering New Yorkers, without exception, to live the healthiest life possible. Visit us at nychealthandhospitals.org and stay connected on Facebook at facebook.com/NYCHealthSystem or Twitter at @NYCHealthSystem.