Published: 07 Sep 2015 12:42 GMT+02:00
http://www.thelocal.ch/20150907/health-insurers-eye-higher-costs-for-the-lazy
Health insurers eye higher costs for the ‚lazy‘
Swiss health insurers could demand higher premiums from customers who live sedentary lifestyles under plans to monitor people’s health through wearable digital fitness devices. CSS, one of Switzerland’s biggest health insurers, said on Saturday it had received a “very positive” response so far to its pilot project, launched in July, which is monitoring its customers’ daily movements. The MyStep project, developed in conjunction with the University of St Gallen and the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, is using digital pedometers to track the number of steps taken by 2,000 volunteers until the end of the year, synchronizing that data with an online portal on the CSS website.
said Blick. Peter Ohnemus of Dacadoo, a company specializing in collecting health data, agrees that digital tools could be useful to insurers and push people to take responsibility for their health.
“There’s no solidarity if someone who does a lot of sports and takes care of their health has to pay Digital tools such as the Fitbit could be used to monitor customers‘ activity. the same high premiums Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP as someone who smokes, drinks and drives The project, the first of its kind in Europe by Schmidt told newspaper Blick on Saturday. and does not play sports,” he told Blick. an insurer, “should reveal whether and how insurance companies can introduce an approp- At the moment digital tools can only legally Fitness wristbands such as Fitbit are just the riate offer tailored to customers’ needs,” Volker be used with those taking out supplementary beginning of a revolution in healthcare, belieSchmidt, head of technology at CSS, said in a insurance, but Schmidt feels such technology ves Ohnemus. statement. could also benefit Switzerland’s compulsory “Eventually we will be implanted with a nabasic insurance. The pilot also aims to discover to what extent no-chip which will constantly monitor us and insured people are willing to disclose their per- “Given the increased cost of healthcare, we transmit the data to a control centre,” he said. sonal data, and whether self-monitoring en- will inevitably have to promote individual rescourages them to be more active in everyday ponsibility in order to strengthen solidarity bet- Obesity in Switzerland now costs the health life, pushing them to take 10,000 steps a day. ween insured people,” he told the paper. service eight billion francs a year, according to figures from the Federal Office of Public He“So far the response has been very positive”, The implication is that people who refuse to be alth, rising from 2.7 billion in 2002. monitored will be subject to higher premiums,