PROVIDENCE, R.I., Jan. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Virgin Pulse, the leading global provider of digital wellness and wellbeing SaaS solutions, today announced an exclusive partnership with Healthcare Bluebook, an organization committed to protecting consumers and companies nationwide from overpriced, low-quality healthcare. As part of Virgin Pulse’s ongoing commitment to engaging employees across all aspects of wellbeing, the company will embed Healthcare Bluebook’s healthcare transparency technology into its market-leading wellbeing platform, giving clients and their employee and members seamless and immediate access to proprietary cost and quality metrics on healthcare services.
According to Virgin Pulse CEO, David Osborne, the Healthcare Bluebook integration will be seamless for Virgin Pulse clients and members, following a long-standing tradition of delivering relevant, personalized experiences that simplify a user’s wellbeing, health and healthcare journey.
Point of fact: one in five Americans will receive a surprise medical bill.1
“By making Healthcare Bluebook available from the Virgin Pulse platform, our clients and members can access information that will help them compare cost and quality of services and providers,” said Osborne. “With the recent call for healthcare cost transparency from the June 2019 executive order, we know that consumers today are struggling to find accurate information. Cost transparency and the ability to seek and access quality care easily and confidently are absolutely critical to an individual’s health and wellbeing.”
Available mid-2020, Virgin Pulse’s deep integration of Healthcare Bluebook will allow employees and health plan consumers to better navigate the healthcare marketplace and more efficiently and effectively shop for a physician or medical procedure on the basis of cost and quality at a time when consumers struggle for that information.
Point of fact: a recent nationwide poll found that two-thirds of workers with job-based coverage said finding the cost of a medical treatment or procedure was somewhat or very difficult.2
“This exclusive partnership with Virgin Pulse furthers our mission to protect patients by exposing the truth of healthcare cost and quality variation,” says Jeff Rice, founder and chief executive officer of Healthcare Bluebook. “Our Healthcare Bluebook solution through Virgin Pulse will help its members fully understand the costs associated with a medical procedure and steer them to the highest-quality, lowest-cost physician or facility in their area, turning them into smarter healthcare consumers.”
This partnership, which follows the company’s recent benefits navigation, digital therapeutics and diabetes prevention program (DPP) announcements last week, is another step in Virgin Pulse’s Homebase for HealthTM strategy. The company’s response to the growing frustration employers and health plans are experiencing as they seek to educate and engage employees and consumers in improving their health and wellbeing, Homebase for HealthTM aims to provide a trusted, unified and personalized place where consumers can manage all aspects of their wellbeing, health and healthcare.
About Virgin Pulse
Founded in 2004, Virgin Pulse is the world’s largest, most comprehensive digital health and wellbeing SaaS company focused on driving real outcomes for employees, employers, health plans and their members. As the industry’s only digital health and wellbeing company to fuse high tech with high touch, Virgin Pulse engages users every day in building and sustaining healthy habits and lifestyles and managing chronic disease. The company’s health and wellbeing offerings include benefits navigation, claims analysis, digital and live coaching, condition management and CDC-recognized digital diabetes prevention programs (DPP) to support more than six million Virgin Pulse members around the world across the entire wellbeing, health and health care lifecycle — from prevention to intervention to reversal. To learn more, visit Virgin Pulse and follow us on Twitter or LinkedIn.
About Healthcare Bluebook
Since 2007, Healthcare Bluebook has been protecting consumers and employers nationwide from overpriced, low-quality healthcare. Bluebook’s intuitive online healthcare shopping solution helps 5,000+ employers cut costs by using a simple color-coded guide to steer employees to high-quality healthcare facilities and providers with prices at or below fair price. With industry-leading objective price and quality data and claims-driven ROI reporting, Bluebook provides users with everything they need to compare facilities, save money, and find high-quality care. For more information, visit Healthcare Bluebook and follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.
Media Contact:
Press@virginpulse.com
Or Wendy Werve
wendy.werve@virginpulse.com
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1 https://www.ahip.org/wp-content/uploads/surprise_billing_issue_brief_2019.pdf
2 https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/report/kaiser-family-foundation-la-times-survey-of-adults-with-employer-sponsored-insurance/