Tivity Health, Inc. (NASDAQ:TVTY) today commented on the Company's relationship with UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) ("UnitedHealthcare") and reaffirmed the Company's 2018 preliminary financial guidance.

This morning, UnitedHealthcare issued press releases indicating that, beginning in 2018, it will provide its own new fitness benefit program in nine states for members enrolled in eligible UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage Plans. This program has been previously available in two states.

UnitedHealthcare will offer this program for Individual Medicare Advantage members in those 11 states and continue to offer the SilverSneakers® Fitness Program for their Group Medicare Advantage members in all 50 states. Today, SilverSneakers is available via UnitedHealthcare and other Medicare Advantage and Medicare Supplement plans to 14.8 million eligible members.

"We have an 18-year relationship with UnitedHealthcare offering our SilverSneakers Fitness Program to their Medicare Advantage members throughout the U.S.," said Donato Tramuto, Tivity Health's Chief Executive Officer. "In April of this year, we renewed our contract with UnitedHealthcare to provide the SilverSneakers Fitness Program through 2020. Every year, each of our healthcare plan clients determine in which counties and states they will offer supplemental benefits such as SilverSneakers. UnitedHealthcare's plans, along with all of our other ongoing conversations with our healthcare plan customers regarding their fitness benefit offerings, are fully reflected within our preliminary 2018 financial guidance set forth in our earnings call on October 26, 2017, for the quarter ended September 30, 2017. We highly value our relationship with UnitedHealthcare and believe strongly in the power of the SilverSneakers brand and the inherent value of our proprietary programming. In 2018, we expect the number of eligible members for SilverSneakers will grow to almost 16 million."