Health Coaches Aren’t Just Nice to Have — They’re the Catalyst for Change

Health coaches drive meaningful change through personalized, continuous support 

Once considered a niche role, health coaches are now recognized as integral members of care teams across hospitals, wellness centers, insurance providers, and digital health platforms like Noom.¹

“The best thing a doctor can do to help a person with that is employ a health coach. Because health coaches really meet the person where they are in terms of execution of the plan, helping them to identify the barriers, their strengths, and where there are areas of opportunity, and then to create action and to continue that action day in and day out,” says Dr. Jeffrey Egler, M.D., Noom’s Chief Medical Officer. 

Health coaches offer various benefits to help individuals better their health and lifestyles, and ensure those changes last long-term, including: 

• Ongoing support: A typical medical appointment lasts about 15 minutes,² not enough time to tackle the complexities of behavior change. Coaches offer continuous touchpoints to help people turn recommendations into action and make meaningful progress. 
• Personalization: Coaches adapt broad medical guidance to an individual’s daily reality, tailoring strategies to their preferences, schedules, unique challenges, and goals.
• Specialization: Health coaches can offer specialized expertise to help address specific conditions and risk factors. This plays a pivotal role in prevention. That’s why members in Noom’s Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) get dedicated support from a trained DPP lifestyle coach certified by CDC-affiliated Diabetes Training & Technical Assistance Center. This ensures members have the evidence-based guidance to build habits that prevent the onset of diabetes. 
• Behavior change expertise: By leveraging proven psychology-based techniques like motivational interviewing, coaches help people uncover their “why” and learn how to make small changes that turn into lasting lifestyle habits.  

Digital health platforms amplify coaching and drive sustainable results

Digital health platforms make health coaching more accessible and scalable than ever. Noom members, for instance, can connect with their coach anytime through the app — removing the need for office visits or scheduled appointments. This accessibility promotes health equity and enables organizations to support entire populations, not just those who seek out in-person care.

Beyond access, digital health platforms can provide various tools and features that complement 1:1 coaching to drive sustainable change. Noom combines coaching with AI-driven tools and psychology-backed lessons to deepen engagement and drive results. Gamification features such as micro-incentives, Noom coins, and nudges help sustain motivation to turn healthy behaviors into lasting habits.

“Digital health platforms like Noom give us a platform through which we can deliver not only the best information curated for that individual, but also access to the health coach to help that person enact that vision,” says Dr. Egler.  

Evidence-based health coaching delivered via digital health platforms also makes it easier to identify at-risk individuals and enable targeted interventions, preventing the onset of costly conditions and delivering healthier populations at scale. 

Empower total well-being for total population health  

To truly transform population health, payers must look to accessible wellness benefits that empower behavior change and improve well-being beyond disease prevention. 

“Health coaches are absolutely key in helping people transform their lives. We all know what to do. Actually doing it is where the rubber meets the road. And health coaches can hold our hands and help us to get to where we want to be,” says Dr. Egler.

At Noom, we’ve seen the real impact personalized support and behavior change can have for health and well-being – Noom members report 48% fewer days missed from work and a 40% decrease in absenteeism after 16 weeks of using Noom.^3,4 This, combined with better health outcomes – Noom members see a 45% reduction in medical expenditures after 6 months – underscores the importance of offering solutions that include accessible coaching and drive behavior change.⁵

The benefits for business are tangible, too, leading to healthier populations and long-term cost savings – Noom offers a 4.1x projected ROI in healthcare and cost savings over 3 years.⁶

To learn more about how combining evidence-based health coaching with clinical support, psychology, and technology can reduce health risks, prevent chronic disease, and drive sustainable behavior change for total well-being, explore Noom Health’s solutions today.

References

¹https://blog.marketresearch.com/7.6-billion-u.s.-health-coaching-market-will-surge-to-new-heights-in-the-next-5-years

²https://www.steadymd.com/blog/primary-care-doctors-no-time-patients/ 

³Based on an internal one-arm prospective study (with no control group) of 273 participants from May 2023. Participants used Noom Mood for 16 weeks, followed by a 16-week follow-up period with no Noom Mood use. Days missed from work per person was calculated by taking the average days missed per person at 16 weeks across all participants divided by average days missed per person at baseline across all participants.

⁴Based on an internal one-arm prospective study (with no control group) of 273 participants from May 2023. Participants used Noom Mood for 16 weeks, followed by a 16-week follow-up period with no Noom Mood use. Absenteeism is the self-reported number of days participants missed work (were absent).

⁵Based on a 6-month retrospective matched case-control analysis of 723 Noom users and 723 non-Noom members based on Aetna data for a Noom B2B Customer.

⁶Third-party validated actuarial analysis, October 2024. This projection is based on a comparison to a status quo scenario where GLP-1 medication spending is uncontrolled. ROI may vary based on factors such as company size, employee health profiles, and current healthcare cost.