Silver Sneakers

Healthways, Inc.

Purpose:

To improve the health of seniors and lower health care costs by promoting physical activity

Target Population:

Seniors enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan providing a health club membership.

Program Goals:

• Determine the association between use of a health-plan sponsored health club benefit by older adults and health care costs.
• Determine the impact of use of a health-plan sponsored health club benefit by older adults with diabetes on health care use and costs.
• Determine the impact of depression diagnosis within past year on use of a health-plan sponsored health club benefit by older adults, participation rates, and risk of depression.

Years in Operation:

Study period (1998-2003); program continues to be available

Results:

General Study

• Though participants had higher medical costs compared to control at baseline, by Year 2 participants had significantly fewer hospital admissions and lower health care costs ($500, on average). Participants who visited a health club at least twice a week incurred significantly less health care costs ($1252 on average) over two years than did those who visited less than once a week.

Diabetes Study

• Participants with diabetes had significantly lower total health care costs than control subjects after Year 1 ($1633 on average). In Year 2, participants' costs trended lower ($1,230 on average). Participants who visited a health club two or more times a week in the first year had lower total overall costs during the second year ($2,141 on average) than did participants averaging less than two visits a week. Overall, participants had a 29 percent lower hospitalization rate over the two-year study period.

Depression Study

• Depression did not impact whether a senior would opt to participate in Silver Sneakers, but the risk of lapse in attendance was higher for depressed patients after the first year. For non-depressed participants, attendance of at least two visits per week was significantly associated with a lower risk of depression in Year 2, and a similar though not statistically significant trend was observed for previously depressed participants.

Funding:

The University of Washington Health Promotion and Research Center, through grants from CDC and NIH, funded the studies in part. The Group Health Cooperative Medicare Advantage Plan purchased the Silver Sneaker benefit from Healthways Inc.

Key Partners:

University of Washington Health Promotion and Research Center, Center for Health Studies of Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, Healthways, plan members, participating health clubs

What Works and Why:

By providing a health club benefit through the health plan itself, plan members are encouraged to participate in organized physical fitness activities. Following the participants and non-participants for a two-year study period allowed sufficient time to begin seeing significant health care cost reductions. Also, the frequency of participation made a difference in costs (general and diabetes studies) and risk of depression (depression study), as well. For diabetic patients, a higher risk group than that of the overall study, the cost savings for participants were three times higher than for non-participants

Structure and Operations:

The studies were retrospective cohort studies relying upon administrative claims data. Outside the studies, the Silver Sneakers is a commercially available program

Barriers to Success:

Providing the health club benefit alone was not a guarantee to participation. Also, the limitations of the study design do not rule out the influence of self-selection among participants.

More Information:

http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2008/jan/07_0148.htm

Download:

Download this program information in PDF format.