UnitedHealthcare is expanding its Healthy Savings program to an additional 550,000 plan participants in Wisconsin, enabling people enrolled in self-funded employer, individual exchange and BadgerCare Plus Medicaid plans to purchase healthier foods at discounted prices.
Healthy Savings provides potential monthly savings of more than $150 on pre-qualified healthy foods from more than 140 food and beverage brands. Eligible UnitedHealthcare plan participants will receive a Healthy Savings card in the mail. After their card is activated online at www.uhcwihealthysavings.com, participants will be able to shop for the promoted healthy foods and scan their card during checkout at 119 Roundy’s Supermarkets locations in Wisconsin, including four Metro Market, 25 Copps and 90 Pick ’n Save stores statewide.
The Healthy Savings website also enables people to find nearby participating grocery stores, track accumulated savings through the program, view health information on serving sizes and portions, create a shopping list, and find recipes using healthy and nutritious ingredients.
Promotional discounts are offered weekly on products in the healthiest one-third of items in a grocery store.
Healthy Savings offers discounts on items such as milk, whole-grain bread, lean meats, yogurt and produce from more than 140 brands. The food items are measured by the national Guiding Stars nutrition guidance system, which rates the nutritional quality of food using information from the nutrition facts label and the ingredients list.
In February, UnitedHealthcare introduced the Healthy Savings program to more than 100,000 fully-insured, employer-based and Medicaid SSI plan participants in Wisconsin. Since then, the program saw more than 400,000 visits to the Healthy Savings website, prompting UnitedHealthcare to expand the program to additional plan participants statewide, including BadgerCare Plus members beginning May 1 and people enrolled in self-funded employer and individual exchange plan participants beginning July 1. Self-funded employer plans will have the ability to opt into the program to provide their employees access to Healthy Savings.
“Healthy Savings gives people the opportunity to make healthier food choices and improve their diets, which will enhance their health and well-being,” said Dustin Hinton, president and chief executive officer of UnitedHealthcare of Wisconsin. “The feedback from our plan participants during the first few months of the program has been tremendous, and demonstrates that people want to eat healthier. By expanding Healthy Savings we are able to deliver healthy options to a wider audience at a lower cost.”
UnitedHealthcare serves more than 1.4 million people in Wisconsin with a care provider network of 142 hospitals and more than 25,000 physicians statewide. UnitedHealthcare BadgerCare Plus coverage is available in 54 of the 72 counties throughout Wisconsin.
