[September 10, 2012]

Assurance Wireless and Gold Mobile Partnership Delivers Affordable Mobile Health Care Solutions for Medicaid Members

Assurance Wireless, a federal Lifeline Assistance program that provides a cellphone and free voice and texting services to low income eligible residents, and Gold Mobile (GoMo Health) have teamed up to jointly deliver mobile patient/member engagement and communications solutions for health care insurers, and HMOs. These new mobile health care solutions are available for all member patients but are free for Assurance Wireless customers.

The partnership between Assurance Wireless and Gold Mobile allows health care organizations to strengthen channels of communication with their patients by being able to place calls or send text messages with information to promote preventive health care and remind patients of regular check-ups with their doctors.

The Gold Mobile multichannel engagement platform provides a convenient way for insurance carriers to communicate with members to ensure that lapses in medical coverage and care do not occur. Assurance Wireless customers with participating health plans will have free access to contact their primary care physician's office and their health plan providers via voice calls and text messaging.

The two organizations complement each other, providing a way to improve communications with health care providers for their shared demographic.

"Assurance Wireless provides the best value in calling plans among major Lifeline Assistance programs¹," said Dave Avila, business development manager, Assurance Wireless. "Through our combined programs, we will provide affordable, socially conscious health & wellness communications for low income member patients, to improve their health and ultimately, their quality of life."

In addition to wireless communications platforms, Gold Mobile also provides HEDIS (Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set) programs for insurance carriers whose customers are low-income, disabled, Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. HEDI, used by more than 90 percent of America's health plans, consists of 76 measures across five domains of care used to measure performance of care and service. Health plans also use HEDIS performance measurements to gauge where they may need to improve components of their service while employers, consultants and consumers use it to help them select the best plan for their health care needs.

"Gold Mobile provides a valuable benefit to Assurance Wireless customers by providing a patient engagement platform for health care offices to have two way interactions with patients/members and to send regimens, messages, reminders and healthy living information to low-income Medicaid HMO members while supplying HEDIS feedback for health care management initiatives," said Bob Gold, CEO of Gold Mobile. "It's an effective way to extend the benefit of free communication services to further assist low income customers and provide a way for health care organizations and providers to better care for their patients."

Assurance Wireless is a no-contract Lifeline Assistance program from Virgin Mobile (News - Alert) USA, supported by the federal Universal Service Fund and available in more than 35 states. It provides eligible low-income customers a cell phone and 250 free minutes of wireless voice service for local and long-distance calling and 250 free text messages monthly. It is a worry-free way to stay in touch with prospective and current employers, school services, doctors, and family in times of emergencies. The Lifeline Assistance program is available for only one wireless or wireline account per household.

Enrollment in this government benefit program is available to residents who meet federal or state-specific eligibility criteria. Residents may qualify for Assurance Wireless if they are on certain public assistance programs, such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Federal Public Housing Assistance (FPHA) or Section 8, Low Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP) or the National School Lunch Program's Free Lunch Program. Consumers can also qualify based on household income. Residents must provide proof of program participation or proof of income.

GoMo Health's innovative multichannel engagement tools and "live" support facilitate the successful execution of member, acquisition, engagement, and health care and loyalty initiatives. Multichannel SMS, email, voice and multimedia communications empower organizations with opt-in (preference based) member engagement and ongoing two-way interaction.

About Assurance Wireless

Assurance Wireless, one of Sprint's no-contract brands, is supported by the Lifeline Assistance program, part of the Low Income Program of the federal Universal Service Fund (USF), which is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC). Assurance Wireless provides service on the Nationwide Sprint Network, which reaches more than 282 million people. Follow Assurance news on Facebook (News - Alert) www.facebook.com/assurancewireless or on Twitter (News - Alert) www.twitter.com/assurancecell and YouTube (News - Alert) http://www.youtube.com/assurancewireless.

About GoMo Health (Gold Mobile)

Gold Mobile, a leading mobile Enterprise CRM Solution provider, provides an innovative multimedia communications platform for direct consumer engagement, transactions and rewards. GoMo Health™ integrates the Gold Mobile platform with sophisticated multichannel engagement tools for real-time two-way patient interaction, resulting in highly personalized and location-sensitive in-the-moment communications. For more information, visit: www.gold-mobile.com

Offer limited to eligible customers (varies by state) residing in selected geographic areas and is non-transferrable. Assurance Wireless is subject to the Terms of Service (includes plan details) found on http://www.assurancewireless.com/Public/TermsandConditions.aspx.

¹ Based on published price plans as 9/10/12 of major Lifeline carriers with more than 1M subscribers who provide service in more than 20 states.

Photos/Multimedia Gallery Available: http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/mmg.cgi eid=50401280&lang=en

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]