December 14, 2007 
I was looking at a Wellpoint investor presentation and picked a few slides to pull out. It is definitely an interesting read to see all the things they are doing and how they approach the market. The first one talks about the prevalence of chronic diseases. The second about the obesity trend, and the third about some of their activities around consumerism.
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
Where can I lay my hands on the investor report?
It can also be confusing when risk conditions are lumped in with disease conditions. Sometimes the lines of demarcation are not clear. For example, is hypertension a disease or a risk factor? Is high cholesterol a disease or risk factor? How about sleeping problems? Some studies lump depression into the risk factor category.
In terms of these conditions, it is also generally the case that the financial impact of each is considered separately. But we all know that most diseases come in the company of others.
Interesting slide on prevalence of chronic disease– it looks like they merely added disease prevalence on the right and then said this is the # of people impacted.
If so, they’ve completely ignored (or are conveniently forgetting) that many of these diseases are clustered in the same individuals. The total number of people impacted should still be in the ~20% range, which would ballpark at 60M in the US.
On the “Innovation through Focus on Consumerism” slide, the links for Online lifestyle management, Click to chat with health coach, and Interactive health assessment should all link to one page with this in big bold letters: “GET OFF THIS WEBSITE AND TAKE A GOOD BRISK WALK AROUND THE BLOCK A FEW TIMES.”