Improve Your Customers’ Health—and the Health of Your Bottom Line—with Medicare Advantage Fitness Programs

By Lourdy Soto, Sr. Director, Client and Broker Engagement

In 2023, millennials may carry the day as the largest generation, but baby boomers should not be a forgotten segment of your sales portfolio. Not by a long shot! This impactful cohort, currently observing birthdays between 59 – 77, commands the most spending power of any U.S. generation. And there’s a lot on their minds—ranging from their investments to their next travel destination to their health care.

For health insurance agents and brokers, the timing presents an opportunity to expand your portfolio and enhance your business growth by helping clients invest in one of their most valuable assets: their personal health and fitness.

It’s no secret that physical fitness has a greater impact on health than most any other lifestyle choice. Studies show that regular physical activity can strengthen bones and muscles, reduce risks of falls and diseases, improve brain health, enhance weight management, and increase abilities needed to complete daily activities, like grocery shopping and house cleaning. That leads to fewer hospitalizations, fewer costly medical procedures, and long-term reductions in health care costs. Who wouldn’t want to reap those kinds of benefits?

Brokers can help clients embark on (or continue) a fitness plan through Medicare Advantage fitness programs. Not only do such programs help clients live healthier lives, but they can help your clients be more socially connected—a key benefit in an era where the U.S. is experiencing an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation.” According to the U.S. Surgeon General, about one-in-two adults in America have reported experiencing loneliness. Research shows that loneliness and isolation are linked to insomnia, depression, anxiety, inflammation and disease, pain, and shorter life span.

One such fitness program is the Silver&Fit® program. The features of this increasingly popular program will make you a hero with your clients who value their health and happiness. Program highlights include:  

• There’s no cost, in most cases, to your clients. Most health plans provide a fully subsidized gym membership benefit, so you can feel comfortable offering a high value program that also helps your clients contain their costs. For those health plans that do not fully subsidize the program, there is a nominal fee that is a fraction of what most gyms charge at market value.
• Access to a broad national network of more than 20,000 gyms, YMCAs, fitness centers, or recreational facilities, including some of the nation’s most popular and most prominent facilities. Additionally, members can “buy up” to boutique and niche fitness centers.
• For your clients who prefer to work out at home, the program offers online digital fitness options, including more than 9,200 digital Workouts on Demand, and a digital resource library of educational content on sleep, nutrition, stress, exercise, and more.
• Members can also order their choice of 11 home fitness kits (one per year) such as: a Pilates kit with an exercise ball and towel; a strength training kit with dumbbells and exercise bands; a swim kit with goggles and other swim gear; or other fitness kit options.
• Additional “at-home” fitness offerings include live telephone coaching and online 14-day Workout Plans. Your clients will love unlimited phone or online chat sessions with an experienced wellness coach who can help them set fitness and lifestyle goals.
• New for 2024, the Silver&Fit program is increasing its online 14-day Workout Plans to 33, and is adding FitnessCoach®, which will provide up to 8 sessions of 1:1 personal training with a coach.
• To help your clients reduce feelings of social isolation and loneliness, the Silver&Fit Well-being Club provides fun and educational live-streaming group events, such as cooking classes, game days, virtual tours, and introductions to social clubs where they can meet others with similar interests.

The Silver&Fit program serves 4.8 million eligible individuals. More importantly, 98 percent of members say they are satisfied with the program, and more than a quarter of members surveyed said their health is better than the previous year. That’s the kind of feel-good program many brokers are clamoring to share with their growing list of baby-boomer clients!

To learn more about the Silver& Fit program and how it can further improve the health of your clients while improving your bottom line, please contact me at lourdys@ASHN.com, or reach out to agentinfo@silverandfit.com.

Lourdy Soto is Senior Director of Client and Broker Engagement, American Specialty Health Fitness.

Silver&Fit is a product of American Specialty Health Fitness, Inc. (ASH Fitness). ASH Fitness is a subsidiary of American Specialty Health Incorporated (ASH), which provides health plans, employer groups, associations, and others with a wide range of health management, fitness and exercise, and clinical programs to improve the health of their members or employees. Silver&Fit and FitnessCoach are federally registered trademarks of ASH.