Dive Brief:
- J.P. Morgan Chase and Amazon have begun offering employees in select states health insurance through Haven Healthcare, the joint venture the two companies and Berkshire Hathaway launched early last year, per initial Bloomberg reporting confirmed by Healthcare Blog.
- Amazon is currently offering 2020 plans for its workers in Connecticut, North Carolina, Utah and Wisconsin, and JPM is offering the plans in Ohio and Arizona.
- The JPM-Haven plans, run by payers Cigna and Aetna, don't require employees to pay deductibles and do offer financial rewards for fulfilling certain wellness activities like keeping blood pressure below target levels, according to Bloomberg. Co-pays range from $15 to $110 for a majority of services, though higher acuity care like hospitalization is more expensive.
Dive Insight:
The Boston-based nonprofit venture, which has an office in New York, has spooked established players fearful of potential disruption. The three companies have a combined 1.2 million U.S. employees.
However, this initial rollout in tandem with traditional health insurers like Aetna, now part of CVS, and Bloomfield, Connecticut-based Cigna could assuage some of those worries.
Details about Haven have been scarce since the beginning. In March, the trio launched a website with vague ideas of what it would be focusing on, like leveraging technology and looking at common-sense fixes to lower employer healthcare costs.
Employer-based insurance covers more than 55% of the country, according to census data, and traditional healthcare players have long urged businesses to get off the sidelines and do their part to lower skyrocketing healthcare spending.
Some Amazon employees are already enrolled in the plans created in consultation with Haven and insurance providers. JPM plans to look at how the new offerings perform to see whether employees find it more transparent, according to Bloomberg. Berkshire Hathaway did not respond to a request for comment.
"Amazon regularly pilots new benefits and services to best meet the needs of our employees," an Amazon spokesperson told Healthcare Blog.
Helmed by Harvard Medical School professor and New Yorker author Atul Gawande, Haven includes a powerhouse team of healthcare execs, including former UnitedHealth and Comcast executive Jack Stoddard as COO, ex-SVP of enterprise analytics at BCBS Massachusetts Dana Gelb Safran and former Optum exec David Smith as director of product strategy and research.