Carlson Selects Castlight Health to Help Employees Reduce Costs and Improve the Quality of Care

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Castlight Health, the leading provider of health care transparency solutions for employers and payers, today announced that global hospitality and travel company Carlson has selected Castlight to help 10,000 of the company’s employees make better-informed decisions about their health care.

“By using Castlight to turn our employees into more engaged health care consumers, we found we could reduce this expenditure and in turn, invest the savings into growing our business.”

Carlson, a global leader in the hospitality and travel industry, launched Ambition 2015, an internal initiative focused on making Carlson the top hospitality and travel company to work for and invest in. One element was to improve the health and wellness of its workforce, which Carlson planned to achieve by upgrading its health care plan and benefits program. In addition to improving employee health, this health care transformation is expected to reduce costs, allowing Carlson to reinvest resources and capital to fuel company growth.

“With the cost of health care continuing to increase, we needed to get creative with our benefits program to lessen the financial burden and remain a top company to work for,” said Shawn Leavitt, vice president of global compensation and benefits, Carlson. “By using Castlight to turn our employees into more engaged health care consumers, we found we could reduce this expenditure and in turn, invest the savings into growing our business."

Carlson is offering Castlight as part of an enhanced benefits package for 2013, which includes a broad consumer-driven health plan. After a competitive evaluation of health plan and third-party options, Carlson determined that Castlight’s health care management suite was the best on the market, due to its accurate pricing information and clinical quality data. This insight into cost and quality of services and procedures will help Carlson’s workforce become more engaged and informed health care consumers, enabling them to derive better quality care for their money. Additionally, Carlson was drawn to Castlight’s commitment to technology innovation, which the company plans to capitalize on as it continues to evolve its employee benefits offerings.

“Carlson is a forward-looking company that has developed one of the most innovative benefits programs in the U.S.,” said John Driscoll, president, Castlight Health. “Directly linking health care transparency with company growth will aid in Carlson’s goal of becoming the leading hospitality and travel company, as they will be able to leverage health care cost savings from Castlight into new initiatives.”

About Carlson

Carlson is a global hospitality and travel company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minn. Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group includes more than 1,300 hotels in operation and development, including, Radisson Blu, Radisson®, Park Plaza®; Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inns & Suites By CarlsonSM and Hotel Missoni; more than 900 T.G.I. Friday’s® restaurants; and a majority stake in Carlson Wagonlit Travel®, the global leader in business travel management. Carlson operates in more than 150 countries and territories and its brands employ more than 170,000 people. For more information, please visit Carlson’s website: http://www.carlson.com.

About Castlight Health

Castlight Health enables employers, their employees, and health plans to take control of health care costs and improve care. Named #1 on The Wall Street Journal’s list of “The Top 50 Venture-Backed Companies” for 2011 and one of Dow Jones’ 50 Most Investment-Worthy Technology Start-Ups, Castlight Health helps the country’s self-insured employers and health plans empower consumers to shop for health care. Castlight Health is headquartered in San Francisco and backed by prominent investors including Allen & Company, Cleveland Clinic, Maverick Capital, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Oak Investment Partners, Redmile Group, T. Rowe Price, U.S. Venture Partners, Venrock, Wellcome Trust and two unnamed mutual funds. For more information, please visit our web site at http://www.castlighthealth.com or call (415) 829-1400.