WellPoint, Inc., (NYSE: WLP) one of the nation’s largest health benefits
companies, and global well-being improvement leader Healthways,
Inc. (NASDAQ: HWAY), today announced that they have entered into a
definitive agreement whereby WellPoint’s affiliated health plan members
will have access to the Dr. Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart
Disease™. The collaboration applies to members of WellPoint’s affiliated
health plans which span 14 states and represent nearly one in nine
Americans.
The Ornish Program helps individuals with cardiac-related health issues
to better assess, track and manage their condition by improving key
factors such as what they eat, how they respond to stress, and their
physical activity levels.
WellPoint will support Healthways’ deployment of the Ornish Program
among its affiliated health plan membership across the markets it serves
in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine,
Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Healthways will work with WellPoint’s network of participating
facilities and providers to help them become certified, approved
providers of the Ornish Program. Healthways will provide the start-up
infrastructure required to deploy the Ornish Program as a scalable
solution for providers in the WellPoint service area.
“Over 75 percent of the nearly three trillion dollars in annual U.S.
health care costs are spent on chronic diseases that can be largely
prevented and improved through comprehensive lifestyle changes. These
realities put programs like the Dr. Ornish Program for Reversing Heart
Disease, front and center in the effort to transform our health care
system,” said Doug Wenners, senior vice president of Provider Engagement
and Contracting for WellPoint. “The Ornish Program is a highly effective
way to engage individuals in proactively managing their health and, in
turn, realize positive outcomes.”
In July 2013, Healthways announced that it had entered into an exclusive
partnership with Dr. Ornish to operate and license his Lifestyle
Management Programs. The Ornish Programs have demonstrated effectiveness
in the management of coronary artery disease; Type 2 diabetes;
early-stage prostate cancer; chronic diseases that drive
disproportionate medical costs; and health-related lost productivity
nationwide. The Dr. Dean Ornish Program for Reversing Heart Disease
qualifies for reimbursement from many payers, including Medicare, under
current fee-for-service payment. The Ornish Programs also align with
efforts to create value-based reimbursement models that reward health
systems and physicians for positively changing the underlying health and
well-being of populations and their associated health-related costs in a
sustainable manner.
“WellPoint has an exceptional commitment to finding innovative ways to
provide real-world solutions that improve health care quality while
effectively managing costs to obtain value for its customers. As such,
the company has been at the forefront of health care transformation,”
said Ben R. Leedle, Jr., president and chief executive officer of
Healthways. “This agreement represents not only WellPoint’s strong
support for the Ornish program itself but also WellPoint’s dedication to
bring population-health management and well-being programs to its health
plans’ trusted provider networks.”
About Dean Ornish, M.D.
Dean Ornish, M.D., is the founder and president of the non-profit
Preventive Medicine Research Institute and Clinical Professor of
Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Ornish
received his M.D. from the Baylor College of Medicine, was a clinical
fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School, and completed an
internship and residency in internal medicine at the Massachusetts
General Hospital. He earned a B.A. in Humanities summa cum laude from
the University of Texas in Austin, where he gave the baccalaureate
address.
Dr. Ornish was appointed by President Barack Obama to the White House
Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Integrative and
Public Health in 2010 and, previously, by President Clinton to the White
House Commission on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Policy in
2000. He chaired the Google Health Advisory Council 2007-9.
He has received numerous national and professional awards including
being honored by LIFE magazine as ''one of the fifty most
influential members of his generation'', being recognized as ''one of
the most interesting people of 1996'' by People magazine; and
having been described in Forbes magazine as ''one of the seven
most powerful teachers in the world.''
About WellPoint, Inc.
WellPoint is one of the nation’s leading health benefits companies. We
believe that our health connects us all. So we focus on being a valued
health partner and delivering quality products and services that give
members access to the care they need. With nearly 68 million people
served by our affiliated companies including nearly 36 million enrolled
in our family of health plans, we can make a real difference to meet the
needs of our diverse customers. We’re an independent licensee of the
Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. We serve members as the Blue
Cross licensee for California; and as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield
licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine,
Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New
Hampshire, New York (as the Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in 10 New
York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as the Blue Cross or
Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in selected upstate counties only),
Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington,
D.C.), and Wisconsin. In most of these service areas, our plans do
business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue
Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, or
Empire Blue Cross (in the New York service areas). We also serve
customers in other states through our Amerigroup and CareMore
subsidiaries. To find out more about us, go to wellpoint.com.
About Healthways
Healthways is the largest independent global provider of well-being
improvement solutions. Dedicated to creating a healthier world one
person at a time, the Company uses the science of behavior change to
produce and measure positive change in well-being for our customers,
which include employers, integrated health systems, hospitals,
physicians, health plans, communities and government entities. We
provide highly specific and personalized support for each individual and
their team of experts to optimize each participant’s health and
productivity and to reduce health-related costs. Results are achieved by
addressing longitudinal health risks and care needs of everyone in a
given population. The Company has scaled its proprietary technology
infrastructure and delivery capabilities developed over 30 years and now
serve approximately 45 million people on four continents. Learn more at www.healthways.com.
Copyright Business Wire 2014