Employees and employers using Vitals’ SmartShopper program have reduced their costs for health care by $40 million since 2014, according to New Jersey based Vitals’ recently released 2017 Book of Business report. $15 million of this figure was saved solely in 2016, allowing the companies to give $4.6 million back to their employees.
The SmartShopper program, available on computers as well as phones, enables consumers to shop through multiple channels and pick medical care at better values. The program rewards those employees using it to select economical and health-wise providers—offering them cash payments that creates more active shoppers within its own network.
Vice President of SmartShopper’s Product & Sales Strategy, Rob Graybill, said that, “Cash is a powerful and important incentive for employees. It not only helps them cover services that may have out-of-pocket costs, reducing the burden of seeking care in the first place, but it also rewards them for reducing the organization’s overall costs.”
The system works thanks to “shoppable” health care services, which are services and procedures that can be evaluated relative to each other, allowing the consumer to choose a better value provider with little inconvenience or risk. Based on information from the Health Care Cost Institute, roughly 47% of health care services are shoppable for commercially insured consumers.
