UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to its member’s physical health and wellbeing, but it also cares about their mental health and wellbeing that they struggle with on a day-to-day basis. This is why, since 2019, UnitedHealthcare has offered its members and their family members 13-years-old and over free access to an app called Sanvello.
Sanvello is an on-demand self-help service for mental health with a variety of tools for people to assess and work on their mental health. All members need to do is download the app, create an account, and choose the option, “upgrade through insurance,” which will upgrade them to a premium account. While they do need to upgrade to get access to Sanvello, this option is offered at no additional cost.
One simple but effective resource is the daily mood tracker where app users answer the question, 'How are you?' Users rank their mood from awful to great, and this serves as an informal snapshot of how they are doing each day. This part of a clinical recovery assessment, called the DASS21 or Mars-12, helps people measure their symptoms and progress. This feature comes with the option to send users a reminder that they can set at a time that fits into their typical schedule.
Beyond the simple daily mood tracker, users can embark on a guided journey which is comprised of a series of modules designed by clinical experts that take on average about 20 minutes to complete. It is made up of four to five activities that users can complete at their leisure. These activities can include educational info cards, video tutorials, audio tutorials, journaling, mood-tracking prompts, and exercise.
“It's based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles for individuals that foster healthy habits for their minds by improving their overall health outcomes,” said UnitedHealthcare Vice President of Sales Michael Telesky. “Each guided journey is going to be centered on an overall goal. Members are always prompted to finish the ‘Feeling Better’ journey first before trying the others because that's really focused on addressing general stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression.”
Since Sanvello is all about addressing and progressing mental health, it allows users to further personalize their progress through creating a roadmap.
“The roadmap can consist of the thought exercises and activity documentation that they do or other exercises, and all of that feeds into the roadmap. It's personalized based on the members’ interaction with the app,” Telesky said.
Other features include meditation tools with activities such as deep breathing and positive visualization and a community support group.
“There is a community tab that's very helpful from what we've seen,” Telesky said. “It's a self-moderated community, and individuals can share questions, resources, and ideas, and they have the option in that community area to participate anonymously or share their names.”
Telesky noted that Sanvello participants interact with the app around five times more than they interact with traditional mental health therapy alone and even experienced lessened symptoms of anxiety and depression even after they stop using the app.
To learn more about Sanvello and other resources UnitedHealthcare offers, visit www.uhc.com.
