Healthways SilverSneakers(R) Fitness Program Proven to Reduce Health Care Costs of Members with Chronic Conditions

“Healthways, Inc. (NASDAQ: HWAY) announced today that, according to recent studies, older adults with diabetes who participate in the Healthways SilverSneakers® Fitness Program are admitted to the hospital less often, have lower inpatient care costs and significant reductions in their overall health care costs after only a year. Greater participation in the program is also associated with significantly lower risk of depression, according to recent studies published in Diabetes Care, the journal of the American Diabetes Association, and the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The studies are a continuation of research funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and conducted by Group Health and the University of Washington (UW) that looked at nearly 5,000 SilverSneakers participants over a two-year period. Researchers examined whether the health care use and the impact on health care costs for older adults participating in SilverSneakers--found in previous studies--also applies to those participants with chronic conditions such as diabetes and depression who have the most to gain from regular physical activity. ‘These studies are proof, once again, of the dramatic positive impact physical activity and prevention can have on the economic burden that chronic conditions place on older adults, the health care system and on our society,’ said Healthways president and CEO Ben R. Leedle, Jr. ‘You have the obvious cost savings, which are outlined in these two important reports, but SilverSneakers also enables older Americans to get more out of life, to interact socially, and to reclaim an element of freedom that may have been fading for them.’”

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