Millions of Americans are embracing health and fitness tracking devices — such as Fitbit and the new Apple Watch — to boost their health and wellness. But a new study suggests a potential downside of the new med-tech devices: Employers may begin to require them for some workers to hold down rising healthcare costs.
MarketWatch reports that millions of the devices are expected to be introduced into the workplace by 2018 as employers adopt incentivized wellness programs to tackle rising health care costs, according to a study by Verizon Enterprise Solutions.
“Tracker information will become part of your health record,” said Nancy Green, global practice lead for health care at Verizon Enterprise Solutions.
Some companies already offer wellness programs, that include antismoking campaigns and free fitness rooms, to help drive down health insurance costs — projected to rise 5.8 percent this year, according to Towers Watson.
As a result, companies “have a very large vested interest to make sure you’re healthy,” Green told MarketWatch.
The result is likely to be more fitness trackers at work, the tracking of employee activity data, the building of yoga studios in offices and the hiring of in-house doctors to run office health clinics, said Malay Gandhi, managing director of health-focused venture-capital firm Rock Health.
“It’s an advantage to make employees as productive as possible,” Gandhi said.
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