UnitedHealthcare and Qualcomm Life launched a new wellness program that provides employees with free wearable devices and enables them to earn up to $1,460 per year by meeting certain goals for the number of daily steps. Called UnitedHealthcare Motion, the program is designed for UnitedHealthcare plan participants enrolled in high-deductible health plans in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Washington, D.C. Additional markets will be added later this year.

Initially, the new offering is being offered to companies with 101 to 300 employees with a fully insured health plan. Employees and their covered spouses receive custom-designed wearable devices that track the number of steps users take each day, along with frequency and intensity of the steps taken. The data is then sent to the UnitedHealthcare Motion app, from where users can access all of the key stats.

“UnitedHealthcare Motion brings together wearable technology, telemedicine and wellness incentives to empower employees to take charge of their health, while enabling employers to more effectively manage healthcare costs,” said Sam Ho, M.D., chief medical officer of UnitedHealthcare. “Employees can improve their health by walking each day and earn financial rewards at the same time, using secure technology that is simple, intuitive and convenient.”

And this, apparently, is just a start with UnitedHealthcare and Qualcomm working on additional programs to provide connected health solutions to employers and people across the U.S. These future solutions will incorporate the latest generation of wearables, medical devices and home diagnostic tests that utilize Qualcomm Life’s 2net Platform for medical-grade connectivity.

Also, it is important to add that this isn’t the first program that pays people for healthy behavior – KrowdFIt is offering a similar service and has recently raised $2.45 million to expand its reach.