<\/p>\n
This is part 2 of the series on the WellAI\u2019s health cost savings calculator for CEOs, CFOs and heads of HR.\u00a0 When we do our modeling for the cost savings calculator, it is important to stay humble, so (hopefully) no one would blame us being biased and in making up numbers \u2013 e.g. \u201cWhat kind of crazy assumptions did you make to come up with a 45% savings number?\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s right \u2013 assumptions matter a lot.\u00a0 Garbage in, garbage out.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we made a decision to be as conservative in our assumptions as possible<\/strong> (to the rational extent, of course).<\/p>\n So how are we being conservative in our assumptions?\u00a0 For example, researchers have to be careful when they estimate a true participation rate for a health-related program, such as a wellness plan or any digital health assistance.\u00a0 Many studies report participation rate of eligible<\/em> employees.\u00a0 In most cases, eligibility requirement includes full-time employees only, 18 to 64 years of age, and excludes pregnant women.\u00a0 However, we have to adjust this participation rate down, as we want to include all<\/em> employees who pay for their health costs.<\/p>\n Keeping the issue of a true participation rate in mind, six studies \u2013 that analyzed various health risk management (or wellness) programs.\u00a0 The average participation rate across these six studies was 36.0%.\u00a0 The median participation rate was 35.4%.\u00a0 To be even more conservative, we chose 30.8% to use in the current study, as that was a true participation rate in a health promotion (wellness) program from the most recent and the most comprehensive June 2020 mega-analysis study in the American Journal of Health Promotion (a sample of 439,689 employees).\u00a0 The WellAI digital health assistant is much more than a traditional wellness program.\u00a0 However, as we mentioned, to be conservative, we assume participation rate for the WellAI digital health assistant of 30.8%.<\/p>\n A March 2020 study by the researchers at the University of California San Francisco reported that more than 50% of all PCP (Primary Care Provider) and ER (Emergency Room) visits were virtual.\u00a0 Some may take this 50% as a reasonable (and already very conservative) assumption for an employee telemedicine service usage.\u00a0 However, there is obviously an overlap in using various WellAI tools.\u00a0 For example, there is a high chance that an employee who utilizes the WellAI chronic diseases management program would also utilize the WellAI telemedicine service.\u00a0 In addition, to be conservative, we are going to assume that those 30.8% who use the WellAI digital health tools outside of telemedicine would benefit from WellAI so much, they wouldn\u2019t need the WellAI telemedicine service.\u00a0 Hence, we are going to assume that only 19.2% (= 50% \u2013 30.8%) of employees would use telemedicine.\u00a0 This is a very conservative assumption because even if all of those 30.8% employees who use the WellAI chronic disease management program and other tools are completely cured after finishing the program(s), they may still need to use the telemedicine service for the PCP visits and so on.<\/p>\n In fact, the current study is the first one that estimates health costs savings from the WellAI telemedicine service versus the appropriate benchmark dictated by the COVID-19 crisis.\u00a0 Pre-COVID, all studies analyzing an economic impact of implementing a telemedicine service were benchmarking against a face-to-face doctor visit.\u00a0 Post-COVID, every major health insurance carrier with a PPO (Preferred Provider Organization) plan, HMO (Health Maintance Organization) plan or POS (Point of Service) plan not only offers, but encourages employees to use their telemedicine service, typically for a co-pay of $30 to $50 per visit.\u00a0 Hence, our yet another very conservative assumption is that those employees who are currently on a PPO plan (e.g. many employees in a large company) would not experience additional benefit switching to the WellAI telemedicine service.\u00a0 The assumption is very strong, even from a pure dollar perspective, not to mention the efficiency and quality of WellAI\u2019s VideoMedix telemedicine service.\u00a0 WellAI\u2019s VideoMedix telemedicine service is part of the overall WellAI digital health experience.\u00a0 Thus, the price per WellAI\u2019s telemedicine visit would be much less expensive for an employer than the $30 \u2013 $50 mentioned above, not to mention that WellAI\u2019s VideoMedix provides 24\/7 unlimited<\/em> service.<\/p>\n Percent of employees who would use the WellAI elaborate symptom checker is assumed to be 43.4%, based on an average from a 2019 meta-analysis study in NIHR\u2019s Health Services and Delivery Research \u2013 by Chambers et al.\u00a0 Of those people, who actually used a symptom checker, 14% opted out of GP (General Practitioner) visit in favor of self-care, and 18% opted out of ER (Emergency Room) visits in favor of self-care, according to a shortened version of the meta-study mentioned above \u2013 by Chambers et al in BMJ Open.\u00a0 Both of these numbers, 14% and 18%, are on the lower end of the estimates mentioned in the study, once again, to keep our assumptions conservative.<\/p>\n This was just a snapshot of the assumptions used in the WellAI Cost Savings Calculator for Employers.\u00a0 It is critical that we are unbiased in our estimates and stay true to academic integrity.<\/p>\n The WellAI app called Doc In A Pock is now available on your smartphone.\u00a0 If you are an employer and would like an app that makes your employees healthier and happier, and save 34% to 45% on your healthcare costs, please visit https:\/\/wellai.health<\/a> <\/span>to sign up for 1-on-1 demo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Please follow WellAI on LinkedIn<\/a><\/span>, Twitter<\/a><\/span>, Facebook<\/a><\/span>, Instagram<\/a><\/span>, Telegram<\/a><\/span> and YouTube<\/a><\/span> for news and updates!<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is part 2 of the series on the WellAI\u2019s health cost savings calculator for CEOs, CFOs and heads of HR.\u00a0 When we do our modeling for the cost savings calculator, it is important to stay humble, so (hopefully) no one would blame us being biased and in making up numbers \u2013 e.g. \u201cWhat kind of crazy assumptions did you make to come up with a 45% savings number?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[129],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/WellAIs-Health-Cost-Savings-Calculator-\u2013-It-Is-Critical-to-Use-Conservative-Assumptions-min-e1602586462580.png?fit=693%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wellai.health\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}