Connect with a Health Coach

Sometimes we all need a little extra help and guidance as we work to tackle health, fitness, or general wellness goals. Your WebMD Health Coach will work with you to create a personalized wellness program just for you. Your coach will help you focus on what you need to do to feel and be your best. Some of the topics you and your coach might discuss include:

• Exercise & Nutrition
• Tobacco cessation
• Weight management
• Sleep hygiene
• Stress resiliency
• Alcohol use

By making positive changes in these areas of life, you can take concrete steps toward improving your health and overall well-being. Many people find that coaching helps them reduce stress, manage stress better when it happens, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, prevent or keep diabetes in check, lose weight, and simply feel better overall.

While your health coach can be a valuable partner in your well-being, a coach is not a substitute for a doctor or other health care professional. Coaches do not provide clinical information, diagnoses, or medication education but they can help you follow through on your doctor’s recommendations. Please be sure to share any diagnoses and care needs with your coach.

Health coaching is all about conversations and connections designed to help you. You’ll enjoy confidential conversations with your coach via phone or the secure messaging platform. Your health assessment results offer one set of information to help guide the work you will do with your coach. You can create personal goals and get the motivation, information and encouragement you need to achieve those goals.

WebMD Health Coaches have degrees in health education, nutrition, exercise physiology, mental health counseling, and diabetes management. The coaches are Certified Health Education Specialists or have a similar certification in their specialty area (for example, Certified Exercise Physiologists, Registered Dietitian, etc.). Coaches are also trained to help you move towards better well-being at a pace comfortable for you.

You will be assigned to a team of coaches to ensure that a coach is always available when it works for you. This means you don’t always have to sync up your schedule with a specific coach to get help. That said, you may end up talking to the same coach multiple times depending on schedules. Every coach on your team will know your goals and concerns so you can feel confident that whoever you talk to is qualified and able to focus just on you.

Your health and wellness coach can answer questions regarding your health risk assessment results. Together you and your coach will discuss the opportunities and barriers that you face in making your health and wellness the priority you want it to be. You’ll discuss how you can feel empowered to make changes and improvements in your life and what goals are right for you. Some examples include finding a workout buddy, adding fruit to your lunch each day, or taking 5 or 10 minutes of quiet time to relax in the afternoon. Your coach will be by your side and help you pick the goal that fits your needs and lifestyle.

To get the most out of your health coaching session, be sure to look over the results of your health risk assessment and note any questions you have. If you have been to the doctor after you last completed the health risk assessment, be sure to update your coach on any new biometric data such as cholesterol or blood pressure readings. You can also write down any questions, concerns, thoughts, or ideas for goals that you want to ask your coach about.

Getting the most from your coaching session should be easy because the topic is you! Generally, in each coaching session you will discuss your goals, things that may have changed for you, what help or information you might need and—of special importance—any successes you must celebrate. All of these come together to enable our coaches to really know you and help you improve your well-being.

Once you’ve started working with a coach, you can find a wealth of resources on the My Health page, Daily Habits page, and the Coaching page which will include the goals you agree upon with your coach. You can also link to the Resources page for tools that can help you measure your success as you make progress towards your goals.

To access the online wellness portal:

• Log on to your MyChart account at member.sanfordhealthplan.org/portal/Authentication/Login
  • If you do not have a MyChart account, you will need to select “Request access for myself.”
• Click on the “Your Menu” icon
• Scroll to “Portals and Links” under insurance
• Click “Wellness Portal” inside the Portals and Links page

Once you have entered the wellness portal, here’s how you can access health coaching:

• Click on the menu icon in the upper right-hand corner
• Click on “Coaching”
  • This will direct you to the page where you can schedule your initial visit with a health coach