If one thing in HR groups is true, it’s that Benefits Executives are perennially stretched thin. Despite all the support that is available from consultants and coaches, many teams are under-resourced, time-starved and always at the mercy of the dynamic and ever changing business needs. This year, with open enrollment coalescing with an imminent need to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine to the most vulnerable employees first, while managing the expectations of all employees and building alliances with healthcare providers, it’s no wonder that somethings fall to the wayside. Like, identifying innovative new programs that can help with altering the course of metabolic disease and improving the underlying health of employee and patient-member populations.
Due to the immense pressures that Benefits teams are facing, it’s incredibly common for them to rely on the solutions that their carrier of choice provides. After all, the systems are connected and their organization is known to employees. Sounds pretty straight forwards doesn’t it? Well, not exactly because many employees and patient members are left without care. For example, when it comes to carrier-lead Type 2 diabetes programs, only around 10-15% of eligible employees sign up and and engagement rates are lower than 30% even after years. So, what’s leading to these underwhelming enrollment and engagement statistics and where does this leave the organization’s financial health and agility?
Most large carrier-based diabetes care programs take inputs from the ADA guidelines or the Diabetes Prevention Program which follow generic, one-size-fits-all nutritional guidance around healthy eating. And while this may sound appealing, it’s actually under-representing the biological factors that define what determines a diet as being good for us. Additionally, many carriers have partnerships with diabetes care programs that rely on monitoring alone using glucometers and strips or that are founded on diets which are highly-restrictive, hard to follow (such as keto). Asking the average American to cut out hamburgers, fries and apple pie is surely going to be an uphill battle!
The latest nutritional science from world-leading epidemiologists has shown that each of our gut microbiomes is unique in terms of abundance and diversity of bacteria. Almost as though we each have a fingerprint in our guts. So what does this mean for our diet and health outcomes? Well, DayTwo’s founding science has shown that people respond differently to the same food and the exact composition of a meal determines how we will respond. The answer might just be as simple as a little less of this and a little more of that keeps our blood sugar from spiking and risking our long-term metabolic health. In fact, DayTwo has designed an entire care program and digital app around helping those with metabolic disease that predicts how they will respond to food before they eat it. The app helps DayTwo members with meal planning, allowing them to eat the foods they love with minor modifications and has over 1 million searchable food, grocery items and restaurant menu items. This means they are never left to guess or forced to forego foods or food combinations that work their unique biology. Plus, they can save their favorite meals or even build a recipe from foods that score well to make meal planning that bit easier and most importantly, predictable from a blood glucose perspective. And that’s not all, DayTwo also offers a dedicated dietitian for each and every member who supports them and their needs including from a behavioral science perspective.
The best part? All of this incredible science, technology and one-on-one personalized care from registered dietitians is available as a turnkey solution for employers who are looking for more effective ways to manage metabolic disease in their populations and realize high value care where today there might be none.
We invite Benefits Executives to review their current diabetes or metabolic disease solution and compare it with DayTwo. For a briefing on DayTwo, email us at daytwosolutions@daytwo.com
