“You should be rewarded for making healthy choices,” states the homepage for HumanaVitality, an incentive program from health insurance company Humana’s. How does Humana track customer’s health-related decisions? Customers provide the information by wearing smart wearables linked to mobile devices, submitting samples for laboratory tests, and using a “HealthyFood Shopping Card.”
In an interview with Fortune, Humana’s CEO Bruce Broussard explains how he personally uses the program. He wears a Garmin heart monitor and watch, which sync with his phone and send information to the company through their app. Exercising earns points that increase a participant’s status in the program and can be redeemed for rewards, like movie tickets, hotel stays, and cameras. Humana incentivizes buying healthy food — and shopping at Walmart — with discounts on future purchases for “Great For You” foods at Walmart, tracked with the shopping card.
Customers are not required to participate. As with so many peculiar developments of the smartphone era, like FourSquare or Venmo (publicly sharing location and payment information, respectively), Vitality participants freely choose to give up their privacy. But that analogy is not quite right, because Humana’s customers are paying for a service, then getting money back in the form of rewards for enrollment.
The company intends to track more than just what customers wish to share. Asked what Humana would do if they received a notification that an asthmatic patient had bought cigarettes, the company’s CIO told Fortune they would send a reminder to the patient, or to their healthcare provider. Asked if insurance rates will ever be tied to that, the CEO replied, “With Humana Vitality we actually do that,” acknowledging that the incentive program amounts to price discrimination based on lifestyle choices. “I don’t think legally they will allow you to get [to where this is the norm] …. I don’t think it will be like the GPS in your car that some auto insurers use to follow you around.”
But Humana does reward people for not smoking by offering points for healthy results from laboratory tests, including a blood test for cotinine, a biomarker for nicotine consumption. Participants can also be rewarded for physically verifying that they have met individually set goals, like smoking cessation or weight reduction.
For Humana, healthier customers require less in health insurance reimbursements. Broussard insists that the goal of the program is to promote health, not save money. Regardless, insurer’s and patients’ interests are well aligned in preventive medicine.
Those who live healthy lifestyles already and don’t mind the privacy reduction are likely only to benefit from such programs. For some, however, it may feel like an invasion into the most personal aspects of one’s life and raise serious concerns about health insurance price discrimination.