Is this employer going to far?

Comments

  • 9 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • The article is confusing. It states you have to do this to get the job, but then states it is for employees. Are they asking for health risk assessments before people are hired? It didn't really look that way, but why say you have to disclose your weight to get the job?

    We have all covered employees complete a HRA with a third party. If you do not do the HRA, you pay an extra $50/mo for insurance. We only see results in aggragate form, and no one is penalized if they don't lose weight or lower their blood pressure.

    Personally, I love our HRAs. You get some blood drawn, have your blood pressure taken and fill out a short questionnaire. It takes 10 minutes. Later you get a complete report letting you know a multitude of numbers and describing where they should be and why. It also rates you with positive and negative points so you can compare year over year. The first year we started this, we had a handful of people who were living with dangerous health conditions and didn't know it. One would probably have been dead within days without treatment.

    People who have issues, like diabetes and high blood pressure can get further advice and guidance by the 3rd party, but no one is required to act on it. An HRA forces people to think of their health at least once per year. The penalty for not participating motivates employees to do it. I just wish we would begin to include spouses.

    As far as CVS is concerned, any organization which holds itself out as part of health and wellness solutions should encourage their employees to be healthy in any way possible. This should not be geared only towards higher paying jobs (the author made a big thing of the fact that many workers there are in lower paid jobs). Everyone deserves to be healthy and be treated as if their health matters. Besides, the employee who can afford ill health the least is the lower paid worker.

    Just my 2 cents.
  • More and more we see that Employers are not paying Employees properly. In many cases they mis-classify employees so they do not have to pay them overtime. It is such a wide spread issue that we created [url]www.workersadvocacy.com[/url] to help employees determine if they are being paid correctly. It's totally free, and can help you understand your federally, and state, protecting rights. We have to stop employers from taking advantage of us!

    If we work more then 40 hours a week, EVEN IF WE get a salary, we may still be entitled to overtime!
  • Mrona. . .you might want to research a more appropriate place to post this. . LOL.
  • I just read another article on this, which makes the CVS plan much like ours. At the end of the article, however, it said employees with bad numbers will be given a year to improve them or "you may have few health options to choose from next time you enroll."

    What the heck does that mean? Are they going to offer fewer options? less coverage (higher deductibles, etc)? no coverage? I am pretty sure you cannot discriminate between healthy and unhealthy participants right now. Perhaps they are looking down the road to PPACA changes. I hope they clarify things soon. I would not want to work for an employer whose communcations are so unclear and ambiguous.
  • I just learned from a very reliable source that the federal gov't is giving financial incentive to health care provider organizations for patient names of smokers and ex-smokers.

    Probably not an appropriate post for this discussion either, but I'm just saying....
  • I think it is appropriate here Nevada. . .and scary. Would this even be legal?
  • Nevada HRNevada HR 274 Posts
    edited August 2015 PMVote Up0Vote Down
    I think it is appropriate here Nevada. . .and scary. Would this even be legal?

    It IS scary and it doesn't seem like it would be legal, but a close relative works for a health care provider who is supplying that information because they have to make up the money they lost in other federal funding cuts.
  • tkesslerTony Kessler 409 Posts
    edited August 2015 PMVote Up0Vote Down
    http://bit.ly/1eDNM8Y

    Here is another employer that tried to use a stick (instead of a carrot) to get employees to participate in its new wellness program. tk
  • Last May the EEOC held hearings on different types of wellness programs. They still haven't come up with any guidance for employers and it's been nearly a year.
Sign In or Register to comment.