Quartz<\/a>, Noom wants to rely on gamified, daily engagement to become the \u201cDuolingo of health.\u201d<\/p>\nA year-long subscription to Noom\u2019s weight-loss plan costs $209.<\/p>\n
Highmark will fully cover Noom for members not on a Medicare Advantage Plan who have a body mass index of 25 or greater. The subscription is merely discounted below that threshold.<\/p>\n
The hope is that people can better manage their weight or diabetes to avoid dangerous \u2014 and expensive \u2014 complications like heart disease, said Tracy Saula, chief product and experience officer at Highmark Health.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of money in the health care industry is spent on treating those diseases, but not nearly enough money in the industry is spent on saying, \u2018how do we prevent those diseases?\u2019 \u201d Saula said.<\/p>\n
Cody Fair, Noom\u2019s chief commercial officer, said Highmark members will be able to access \u201cAI-powered tools like body scan technology\u201d and \u201csmart food logging.\u201d Some features available to members aren\u2019t included in the version of the app available to the general public.<\/p>\n
The insurer will send out enrollment instructions closer to the program\u2019s start.<\/p>\n
From there, members must go through an initial assessment to determine which tier of the program is best for them. Some focus just on weight loss, while others include diabetes management or advice specific to people on GLP-1 drugs, like Ozempic.<\/p>\n
The Noom app first launched in 2016 but didn\u2019t achieve widespread popularity until the covid pandemic. As it gained users \u2014 eclipsing 45 million worldwide by 2021 \u2014 the app also amassed critics.<\/p>\n
Maria Baker, vice president of health strategy and delivery at Highmark Health, said she\u2019s aware of common concerns, including that Noom\u2019s psychological tips could lead to eating disorders.<\/p>\n
There are protocols in place to prevent this, according to Baker, including an initial assessment that looks at a person\u2019s relationship with food.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone is displaying eating disorder indicators, they are not enrolled in one of the programs, they are actually referred back to Highmark,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
From there, Highmark might recommend the patient talk to a clinician or case manager to decide whether Noom is appropriate for them.<\/p>\n
Noom says it has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles supporting its methods. Still, some users and experts say Noom\u2019s marketing underplays the degree to which it\u2019s a traditional diet.<\/p>\n
The New York City-based company also provides GLP-1 drugs, including through a \u201cmicrodose program\u201d that\u2019s meant to address affordability challenges.<\/p>\n
Highmark, whose researchers recently found<\/a> weight-loss surgery often beats GLP-1 drugs on both cost and effectiveness, is not entrusting Noom with prescribing these medications.<\/p>\nJack Troy is a TribLive reporter covering business and health care. A Pittsburgh native, he joined the Trib in January 2024 after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh. He can be reached at jtroy@triblive.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Highmark will start covering Noom \u2014 a subscription-based app that claims to enable weight loss by harnessing psychological…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-91407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}