"Wellness" programs in the crosshairs

[Hawkmoon]

http://beta.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-wellness-20171227-story.html

The company I work for has one of these, and I've been quite aghast at the type of information they ask for. In my case, as a senior citizen and part-time employee I'm not eligible for their health care plan, and I muddle along with the Veterans Administration and Medicare. If I were a full-time employee and staring at the "wellness" plan for real, I would be very cautious about what I told them.

And participation does not appear to be voluntary. I concede that I pretty much scan and delete e-mails pertaining to it, since it doesn't apply to me, but my sense is that regular employees don't have an option to not participate -- unless they're willing to take a huge hit on the cost of the health care coverage.

[Brad Johnson]

Aggressive mandatory wellness program participation is a formalized version of "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Preventive care and resulting early detection of many maladies can be orders of magnitude less costly than late-stage detection. It also provides a risk-mitigation path for insurance companies. Choose not to go with the flow? Okay, get out of the boat or pay for an upgraded ticket.

Personally I don't mind. I have treat preventive care for the old meat-mobile the same as I do any piece of machinery. A program of regular checks against common problems and the occasional shop visit for unexpected breakdowns. If it gets me a discounted premium or a preferred insuree status, more the better. I've only had one as a truly non-medically-related question, that of gun ownership. Presentation of the Declaration of Physician Certification To Provide Firearms Safety Counseling form had them jumping to the next question in short order.

Brad

[K Frame]

My company offers a number of these wellness plans as part of our health care package. Some of them come with some nifty incentives, such as the company contributing $250 to your HSA. I did that one because it required just watching a few videos and taking a quiz -- no personal information passed to them.

[Jamisjockey]

It only makes sense.  Employees that are in better health cost the company less, are more productive, and take less sick days.

[K Frame]

It only makes sense.  Employees that are in better health cost the company less, are more productive, and take less sick days.

And if the company gets a kickback from the wellness provider for being allowed to collect personal information that the company otherwise can't...

BONUS!

*Jamis, we're going to have to let you go. Your genetic markers show that you've got Lepruskankism. While it's not dangerous or contagious, it is really, really disgusting."

[MechAg94]

My company offers a number of these wellness plans as part of our health care package. Some of them come with some nifty incentives, such as the company contributing $250 to your HSA. I did that one because it required just watching a few videos and taking a quiz -- no personal information passed to them.

Our company has the incentive also.  $500 to our HSA if you do a health screening and a questionnaire.  However, I remember years ago when they reduced our healthcare purchase points by $500 and included it in an incentive to do the annual physical.  That was a while back though.

[lee n. field]

*Jamis, we're going to have to let you go. Your genetic markers show that you've got Lepruskankism. While it's not dangerous or contagious, it is really, really disgusting."

That's a protected lifestyle choice.

[KD5NRH]

Aggressive mandatory wellness program participation is a formalized version of "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".

More like "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull____...and figure out how to make them pick up the tab, too."

The article mentions weight control programs.  I've yet to work for any company that actually contributed anything more to that than some lightly-used exercise equipment in a spare office.  Several strongly encouraged potlucks and similar to give people an alternative to the vending machines, but suggestions to put healthier stuff in the machines, and maybe even subsidize the cost of said healthy options a bit were ignored.

I did work for one where the CEO, a former heavy smoker, personally offered to cover half the cost of any legitimate nicotine use cessation treatment for any employee.  Another where an exec personally covered everyone's copays for a bad flu season, but never a meaningful expenditure by the company that truly improved the health of the employees.

(Something wrong with the censorbot?  It didn't catch that above before I remembered where I was and changed it.)

[RoadKingLarry]

It only makes sense.  Employees that are in better health cost the company less, are more productive, and take less sick days.

There are other ways to get employees to not take sick days.
Used to work at a company that while we got "sick days" you'd be penalized for using them.
I'd run a particularly good year for the company bottom line on a couple of special projects I ran, scored a documented $1.7M in real cost savings. One night at work I had an allergic reaction to something at work and broke out in a major case of hives and bailed for the ER.
Come eval time my annual raise was docked 2 percentage points because I'd taken a sick day.
A month or so later I came down with a monster of a cold(maybe flu). I felt like death, hacking, coughing, snot slinging, laryngitis death. While sick I made it a point to spend as much time as possible around the management folks that decided to cut my raise because I took a partial sick day, the only 1 in 5 years.
2 of them were out for a week when they came down with it.

[KD5NRH]

A month or so later I came down with a monster of a cold(maybe flu). I felt like death, hacking, coughing, snot slinging, laryngitis death. While sick I made it a point to spend as much time as possible around the management folks that decided to cut my raise because I took a partial sick day, the only 1 in 5 years.

Been there, done that.  Even an opportunity to sneeze right on the mostly-ripped-open box of snot rags on the boss's desk.  He was only out for one day, but spent part of that in the hospital, (yeah, I did an aspirin/acetaminophen/naproxen/ibuprofen cocktail at 103.0 and never quite hit 104 before dropping quickly back to 102.4 and holding there, whereas his RN wife hauled him in at 104.2 because he wouldn't even take aspirin) and revised the sick time policy shortly after, along with a free digital thermometer for each employee and orders to not be in the office with a fever over 100F.

[K Frame]

"Come eval time my annual raise was docked 2 percentage points because I'd taken a sick day."

You know, you might have been able to cause a LOT of problems for them with your state labor relations board if that reason was given to you in writing. At least a LOT of negative publicity had you gone public.

[RoadKingLarry]

By that time the company was in the early stages of a death spiral and 6 months later I bailed for greener pastures. A month after I left they were done.

[K Frame]

Well, then at least you spread a case of plaguethraxpox around the management team.

[lupinus]

My company has been up on down on these. We get money into an HRA for doing the wellness thing.

It started as just questions. Then during times of immense general stupidity with previous Senior Management it started involving testing numbers and such, and required a Dr sign off.

It's been back on a downward spiral since new management with their head significantly less up their ass took over. 2018 program is back to six very generic questions about your overall health with no requirement to visit a Dr to obtain numbers. I'll take answering those for a couple hundred bucks.

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[BryanP]

We’ve done that sort of thing for several years now. The incentive was a discount on the insurance package if you participate, but you could opt out and pay more. I think they’re about to cancel the whole thing.

[Mannlicher]

if you want your company to pay your health care, don't be surprised when that comes with strings attached.

[zahc]

I would be happy if these programs got cracked down on. Ours is terrible. They raised rates $500/year then implemented $500 of theoretical discounts. To get the discounts you have to share tons of medical information, upload your fitbit data (because everyone has a fitbit), go to the dermatologist every year, participate in bogus counseling sessions, and use their smartphone app (because everyone has a smartphone) to log your stretch breaks, watch tons of bogus videos with outdated nutritional advice, etc. In practice most of us write it off as a straight rate hike. I could come up with $500 easier on the side vs. actually participating. Plus, I did like $100 of BS, and never got the credits! I don't even feel like arguing over it. The wellness plan provider that provides the website is probably laughing all the way to the bank. It's a racket.

Of course I would be even happier if health insurance benefits were banned and the health insurance market were just like any other insurance market. But as long as health insurance is entangled with employment, I would approve of the government stepping in to prevent shenanigans, like employers requiring probing to actually get the benefits.

[RoadKingLarry]

if you want your company to pay your health care, don't be surprised when that comes with strings attached.

Call it what ever you want. My company provided health care plan is a portion of my compensation package, part of my salary.
And while I certainly support private corporations having considerable leeway in who they choose to employ and how they choose to compensate them there is still a point to far.
It's OK to place conditions on life style related health risks to qualify for healthcare benefits. How far can they go?
If a new CEO comes in and decideds that only vegans qualify for health care benefits would that be OK?
You've worked somplace for 15 years and the new HR director decideds that alcohol consumption of any kind is prohibited after work and on weekends, of course drinking at work or being under the influence was out to begin with. Is that OK?
How about your company suddenly requiring that you don't own any firearms to get health care coverage? You're only 2 years away from retirement but you can always get another job right?

[Boomhauer]

Our program is pretty simple just get blood drawn and a physical done at work once a year by the company that does the program and attend a counseling session with the nurse every couple of months when she makes her rounds and you get the discount

One of the things that my company does that I really like is they provide Teladoc for us. The only times I need a doc is when I get a bad sinus infection and instead of going to a doc and paying a $25 copay I call Teladoc on my phone tell them what's going on and they send an antibiotic perscription to the pharmacy of my choice.

[lupinus]

Our program is pretty simple just get blood drawn and a physical done at work once a year by the company that does the program and attend a counseling session with the nurse every couple of months when she makes her rounds and you get the discount

One of the things that my company does that I really like is they provide Teladoc for us. The only times I need a doc is when I get a bad sinus infection and instead of going to a doc and paying a $25 copay I call Teladoc on my phone tell them what's going on and they send an antibiotic perscription to the pharmacy of my choice.

I also really like that program. For us it's MDLive, but same thing. Only a five dollar copay and it's available 24/7. Other nice thing if the doc decides it's something that can't be treated via the phone/video consult we don't get charged. So no real risk of they decide to send you to the "real doc".

For stupid simple stuff it's great.

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[KD5NRH]

One of the things that my company does that I really like is they provide Teladoc for us. The only times I need a doc is when I get a bad sinus infection and instead of going to a doc and paying a $25 copay I call Teladoc on my phone tell them what's going on and they send an antibiotic perscription to the pharmacy of my choice.

Will they also provide a note for sick days?  Talking to a cousin who works at a medical office, an insane amount of their wasted time is providing notes for people who need one to take 2+ sick days for a cold or similar, where the doc can't really do anything for them anyway.