Testimonials
Participants
Lifestyle Coaches
Lifestyle change program coordinators and lifestyle coaches have plenty of positive things to say about CDC-recognized diabetes prevention lifestyle change programs.
Sara Mortensen, Lifestyle Coach
[Participants] come to each class… just to see their progression to meet their goals, that’s really exciting to me.
Laura Aden, Program Coordinator, Kearney Family YMCA
I truly believe we are helping in a small way to change people’s lives. We get to see how they are continuing to make changes in the way they’re eating and moving… Our program team is very collaborative; our group of lifestyle coaches meets before class and we talk about what’s working, what challenges have come up; we share best practices and ideas.
Rickey Sewell, Lifestyle Coach
I love my work as a lifestyle coach and the teachable moments the lifestyle change program offers to participants. I’m also a huge fan of its evidence-based approach. It’s the gold-standard for lifestyle change to prevent type 2 diabetes, and it’s great to be a part of that. It’s wonderful to see how the program inspires people to live a healthier life!
Employers
Many employers and insurers already offer lifestyle change programs as a covered benefit. And momentum for the lifestyle change program is building.
Large and small companies, including a public university with more than 40,000 students, Fortune 100 firms, and many family-owned businesses, are adopting this program for their employees.
About 30 private insurers across the country now offer CDC-recognized lifestyle change programs as a covered benefit.
States are increasingly coming on board to cover the program. Several states are covering diabetes prevention lifestyle change programs for their employees:
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California
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Colorado
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Kentucky
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Louisiana
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Maine
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Minnesota
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New Hampshire
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New York
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North Carolina
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Rhode Island
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Washington
Beth Lundholm, Manager, State Employees Group Insurance Program (SEGIP), Minnesota Management & Budget
“As the largest employer in Minnesota, we are committed both to providing our members with quality health care programs and to controlling cost. Chronic diseases like diabetes impact our employees, our health plan, and our bottom line. Prevention is the key to helping our members remain healthy and lead productive lives, and the DPP is standard-of-care for individuals with prediabetes. The “Minnesota BE Nice to Yourself” DPP enrollment campaign was started earlier this year [2015]. We’ve enrolled thousands of patients, and the clinical results in terms of interest, engagement, and weight loss have been excellent. Our DPP partner, Omada Health, is providing us with fast, scalable enrollment and engaging programming. We look forward to continuing to work with Omada and expanding access to the program.”
Global law firm Latham & Watkins, with nearly 3,000 attorneys and staff in the U.S. alone, launched a successful pilot of the National Diabetes Prevention Program in its New York City office with on-site A1c testing followed by lifestyle change classes throughout 2015. Latham’s wellness team partnered with a respected New York City hospital to increase office-wide awareness of prediabetes, biometrically screen those concerned about their risk and engage those identified as high-risk. This approach not only resulted in enthusiasm from program participants but helped raise the issue of prediabetes generally and underscored the firm’s commitment to preventing this disease. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of participants—10 of whom moved from having prediabetes to normal blood sugar levels over the course of a year—the pilot’s strong results have set the stage for an expansion of the program. The firm is now expanding the program to its Los Angeles-area offices and is exploring ways to further scale the program for its other locations.