Cigna

Short Summary of Intervention:

Risk reduction program aimed at high- and medium- risk employees. Cigna guarantees that a significant percentage of that high- and medium-risk population will reduce risk factors over the next twelve months.

Links to Materials Being Reviewed:

This is the short version of the brochure and this is the long version.

Summary of key figures and outcomes:

30% of high- and medium-risk members will reduce their risk factors in the ensuing 12 months. (Note: the actual guaranteed figures have varied in the past and may today be different from what you are reading here. However, the concept is still the same.)

Questions for Cigna:

According to noted wellness authority Dee Edington, whose slide is reproduced below, there is a natural flow of risk in a population, so that many high- and medium-risk people would reduce risk factors on their own even absent a program, while some low-risk people might increase their risk factors. How does your Better Health Guarantee adjust for that?

ANS: Refused to answer It appears from this bar chart that low-risk people account for two-thirds of a population, and yet only one-third of the bar chart.   Why did you elect not to draw these segments to scale, in keeping with the tradition of bar charts being drawn to scale?
ANS: Refused to answer

On that same chart, there is no indication that any of those two-thirds (670 out of 1000) might increase their risk factors, perhaps by regaining weight previously lost. How does your Better Health Guarantee account for the likelihood that people might regain weight or resume smoking?
ANS: Refused to answer

Speaking of which, let us assume that there is only one risk factor, smoking. Let us also assume that everyone in my organization smokes half the time, but they also quit half the time. Wouldn’t your Better Health Guarantee methodology show a 100% decline in smoking every year even if you don’t do anything and the actual rate of smoking remains the same every year?
ANS: Refused to answer