More than nine million Cigna HealthCare plan members will be able to manage their healthcare on their personal computers when the national carrier releases its latest online healthcare tool.
Intuit and Cigna have announced a partnership that will bring Quicken Health to Cigna members in 2008.
Cigna, which already provides a host of consumer-engagement tools for its members such as its member portal myCigna.com, wanted to provide a different venue to drive consumer engagement in a meaningful way, said Dan Carmody, vice president of informatics at Cigna.
"Quicken is a household name," he said. "It's an easy engagement model."
After members give their consent, Cigna will be able to export medical and claims information from its system into Quicken Health. The information then will be presented to consumers in a user-friendly, straightforward way.
The idea, said Carmody, is to make the information as user-friendly to consumers as possible.
Cigna has been working with Intuit to enhance the product's processes. Carmody said that one of the advantages of being an early mover is that the carrier has been working with Intuit from the outset to conform the product with Cigna's capabilities.
Intuit made the partnership announcement at the fourth annual World Health Care Congress in Washington. Dan Levin, general manager for Intuit’s Quicken Health Group, said the response has been "outstanding."
Intuit wanted to partner with Cigna because it is a forward-looking company that has a strong focus on consumerism and can move rapidly to implement Quicken Health.
"If you want consumers to be engaged, it must be easy for them," Levin said. The "never enter data" method helps create a user-friendly environment for consumers.
Cigna is Intuit's third health plan customer, behind UnitedHealthcare and Optima. Levin said Intuit would welcome developing relationships with all domestic health plans that have a consumer focus, and the company hopes that other plans will step forward and support Intuit's healthcare initiative.