What you need to know
- Dvoted Health becomes first private health insurance provider to offer discount for Apple Watch.
- As part of its wellness bucks, customers can use $150 towards the Apple Watch.
- The discount also applies to health classes and programs.
The Apple Watch has become an unexpected health tool that's growing in appeal with health insurance companies as it can track excercises, offer the ECG capability and can even call 911 when it notices a user fell. That has now reached its pinnacle as Devoted Health becomes the first health insurance provider to partner up with Apple to offer a major discount towards the Apple Watch.
According to CNBC, Devoted Health will offer up to $150 per year from what it calls "wellness bucks" that can be used for classes, programs, or a wearable device such as an Apple Watch. The discount can be applied to the Apple Watch Series 3—which only costs $199 now—and Series 5.
The discount is available through Devoted Health's private Medicare Advantage plan that focuses on "world class technology." Here's Devoted Health's statement on the new wellness bucks initiative.
"We are pleased that CMS agrees that there is a wide variety of ways that older Americans can keep healthy, including fitness and nutrition classes, and activity monitoring devices such as the Apple Watch," said Devoted Health spokesman Kenneth Baer. "We are thrilled to be the first Medicare Advantage plan to collaborate with Apple, and give our members the chance to use their Devoted Health Wellness bucks towards purchasing an Apple Watch. Using innovative technologies to improve the quality of care is core to our mission."
It'll be interesting to see which other health insurance providers begin considering offering discounts like this one for the Apple Watch.
