Health insurance companies encourage healthier living through video games

health insurance video games

health insurance video gamesInsurers and healthcare providers recommend some technology for boosting exercise.

In the effort to help to promote living healthier lifestyles, health insurance companies and healthcare providers have been looking to alternative ways to encourage the right behaviors to prevent or even treat conditions and diseases.

These techniques can include the use of video games to increase the frequency of physical activity.

The culture of healthcare has been changing and it has moved to include the use of the technology that is already available to patients. Health insurance haven’t failed to notice as a growing number of patients are listening to their doctors and other providers and are taking part in video games that help to demonstrate and promote motion and activity.

This health insurance effort includes efforts combating conditions as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.

According to Pew Internet Research’s Susannah Fox, “We’re at a time of high need and high potential.” She added that “Two-thirds of American adults are overweight, we’ve got a lot of folks with chronic illnesses — many with things such as hypertension and diabetes that could benefit from tracking.”

Fox believes that one of the primary challenges faced by the creators of the video games that are being recommended by health insurance customers and healthcare providers is to come up with products that will make exercising as simple as “keeping track in your head and as enticing as Angry Birds.”

Using games and game styles can help to make healthy active behaviors more appealing to consumers, according to these companies. For instance, UnitedHealth uses the website for Baby Blocks for assisting pregnant women and new mothers who are in the lower income brackets. As they keep their appointments with their doctors and follow the healthy steps that are recommended for their newborns for the first 15 months, the site allows them to unlock new “blocks”. The completion of each goal provides a new reward, such as a health item or a gift card.

Another example of a game being recommended by health insurance companies and care providers includes using Dance, Dance Revolution and other similar highly active games as a treatment for obesity.

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