Highmark sees a market for guiding the millions of American adults helping their aging and ill parents, relatives and friends.
The Pittsburgh-based insurer is starting a new "comprehensive caregiver support system" available to members and non-members on a subscription basis for $79 per month.
Called CaregiverHQ, Highmark's new service is targeting the estimated 40 percent of Americans who help care for a chronically ill, disabled or elderly family member or friend. This includes anything from driving an elderly parent to monthly appointments to acting as a paid in-home services and supports provider -- with the average caregiver devoting 20 hours a week, according to Pew Research.
The main feature of the subscription service is a personal care coach, a licensed health professional that works with caregivers over the phone to customize care plans with specific goals and identify healthcare providers and options for transportation, food, legal, and financial services.
The program is also designed to offer caregivers emotional support that can be much-needed while helping loved ones with complex and demanding needs or those at the end of their lives.
"Stress is the biggest challenge caregivers face because of the struggle to balance their role as caregiver with other work and life obligations," Philip Tanner, Highmark's director of the CaregiverHQ service, said in a media release.
"The majority of the solutions in the market are geared toward the recipient of care, with the caregiver often being overlooked," said Tanner, the former president of a seniors' home care company in Pittsburgh operated through a private equity firm he ran.
"The current options sometimes offer too much information, which can overwhelm the caregiver and only add to their already high levels of stress. And for people new to the role of caregiver, the unknown is a huge concern," added Tanner.
The service, already launched with its own website, was developed to "address a market demand for a service that did not exist," Highmark wrote in the media release.
It evolved as an "original concept" within the company, said Paul Puopolo, VP of Highmark's business innovation and development department, which has also experimented with mobile health and remote monitoring technologies.
Launching about a year after Highmark finalized its ownership of the Allegheny Health Network , the caregiver support service also comes as a wave of aging baby boomers promises to challenge the American healthcare system and younger generations for aging support.
In the next 15 years, the country's elderly population is expected to grow by about 35 percent to some 72 million, according to Pew.
The AARP pegs the value of unpaid caregiver services at around $450 billion, and also warns that employees providing help to elderly parents or family members can see impacts to their physical and emotional health that turn up in higher-than-average medical claims.