If your health insurance company has you playing games, you’re probably not happy. If you talk about insurance or healthcare to your friends on a social network, the odds are you’re complaining.
But a growing number of companies are trying to change that by improving consumers’ experiences and engaging them—in part through gaming and social networking—in a way that keeps them happier and healthier, all while improving the bottom line for businesses and insurance companies.
WellTok, a health IT startup, thinks it can do that, and investors agree. The Denver-based company announced today it has raised an $18.7 million Series B round, bringing the total money raised by the company to almost $26 million.
WellTok also announced that Jeff Margolis, founder and former CEO of TriZetto, is now its CEO. He previously had been the startup’s executive chairman.
Margolis believes the U.S. healthcare system has many problems, and he has even published a book, titled The Healthcare Cure, about them. He believes one of the biggest problems is getting consumers to take better care of themselves.
“The promise of engaging the consumer in their own healthcare is the missing pillar in healthcare today, and it’s not being addressed,” Margolis said.
WellTok is developing CafeWell, a platform-as-a-service intended to fix that, by bringing together consumer engagement and social networking tools. Users can set goals or enter competitions (think “quit smoking” or “lose more weight than colleagues”), get support from their social network, and consult with coaches to develop strategies. If they stick with it and improve their health, they and their insurance companies could spend less money on treatment.
As a pilot project, WellTok worked with an insurer to create a program to encourage users to walk more. It found that using WellTok’s social network to invite users to participate and keep them informed about each other’s progress improved fitness and customer satisfaction. It estimated an annual return on investment of $584 per engaged member at a program cost of $120 per member.
Margolis acknowledges this idea isn’t new. Insurance companies already have invested a lot in making websites more user friendly, and exercise and weight-loss contests are pretty common at many businesses.
Margolis believes the number of wellness programs on offer can overwhelm consumers and such programs are rarely are customized to an individual’s needs. CafeWell will be a place where users can go to find the right program.
Many companies are trying to use similar engagement strategies to improve healthcare outcomes, but WellTok said its platform has been much more successful than competitors. WellTok claims customers spend an average of 50 minutes per month using the site, and that it has engagement rates 400 percent above the industry average.
WellTok’s release said 10 million people are enrolled in plans that use the pilot version of CafeWell, and that two of the five largest insurance companies are clients. It did not identify the companies.
Emergence Capital Partners, InterWest Partners, and
