HMO offers Weight Watchers to West Virginia Medicaid enrollees

The effort dovetails with the state's Medicaid redesign pilot, which asks beneficiaries to make healthy choices or get fewer benefits.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. Feb. 19, 2007.

Washington -- West Virginia physicians can recommend a new tool to help their overweight Medicaid patients battle against the bulge. UniCare, one of the state's two Medicaid HMOs, recently began offering free 16-week Weight Watchers courses to the heaviest of its 76,000 members.

In a state where 64% of adults are obese or overweight -- the third-highest rate in the nation --the program is hoped to prevent diabetes, heart disease, stroke and other weight-related illnesses, according to Shannon Riley, spokeswoman for the West Virginia Bureau of Medical Services.

"We have a huge degree of obesity-related illness," she said.

The state's Medicaid program serves more than 300,000 people and is not facing additional costs for the Weight Watchers offer. UniCare began and is managing the initiative, but it meshes with the goals of West Virginia's redesigned Medicaid program, Riley said.

Adult UniCare members are eligible for the classes if they have a body mass index of 25 or greater. Children ages 10 to 17 are also eligible if they have a BMI in the 85th percentile or above. Potential participants need a physician referral.

It isn't clear how many of its West Virginia members qualify for the program because UniCare doesn't keep statistics on enrollees' weight, said John Monahan, president for state-sponsored business for WellPoint Inc., UniCare's parent company. WellPoint serves more than 1.8 million enrollees in Medicaid or other state-subsidized programs in 14 states.