"A new CVS policy requires employees that are covered by company health insurance to report their weight, body fat, and glucose levels or they must pay a $600 penalty. The Herald reported that the employees of Rhode Island-based CVS Caremark have until May 1st to report the information or risk being fined. CVS will pay for the doctors visit to get the correct information.
According to a report in the Herald, the company has dubbed the request “a health screening and wellness review so that colleagues know their key health metrics in order to take action to improve their numbers, if necessary.” If workers don’t sign up, their medical coverage will jump by $50 a month."
So what do you think, good idea or bad? CVS / Pharmacy has 200,000 employees.
good or bad it is legal. Companies often require employees to take such tests and will hike thier health insurance premium if they do not. It is completely legal. Now what is nto legal is making employment decisions based on these numbers. The health information must be kept separate from employee decisions in accordance with FMLA. In fact personnel cannot even store such information in the same file cabinet. Without a separate key controlled lock.
So is it a good idea or not? Probably it is. health plans have higher costs based on people not knowing their health numbers. So long as it is tied to health insurance and not employment it is ok in the eyes of the EEOC.
This makes me angry because PWD are singled out. What about all the other health indicators like smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, history of heart disease? Why aren't these factors being reported as well?
Weight, body fat and glucose levels aren't the only health indicators. There are plenty of thin people with normal glucose levels who aren't healthy for a variety of reasons.
My company affords me the opportunity to take part in a health & wellness fair each year. Participation in the biometrics screening + the completion of a questionnaire = $20 reduction in my insurance premium for the year. (Lipid panel, glucose, bp and bmi are all included, among other things.)
If I had paid attention to my screening many years ago, I'd have caught my diabetes earlier than I did.
I don't know how I feel about it being forced upon an employee but in the long run, it may benefit many people who are living with undiagnosed issues.
I hear you Rick and they have the legal right to do this, I just think folks should also exercise their legal right to boycott CVS (if they desire) and let them know directly in writing that this, while legal is intrusive and they won't be shopping with them anymore.
Keep in mind that a large segment of CVS' customers are diabetics.
This is not a "fine". Why not just get the screening, saving 600 bucks on the health coverage is worth it if you ask me. I have had to get physicals to be hired at jobs before. It is not singling out diabetics in my own opinion. And what is wrong with an employer wishing it's work force to be healthy and giving incentive to do so?
Hello Rick: Very displeased to hear its actually "legal" to do so. Yet I understand aspects of it.
Now lets ask the FAR harder questions. Will someone require us to have or be SPECIFIC A1C numbers or get charged massive dollars if we cannot? Still allowed
yes potentially a legal activity at least up until the passage of the recent health care reform package. It remains unclear if group plans can charge different rates based on health conditions. Remember there are two parts of the health insurance rate. The total rate is that which is charged to all participants. the rate you pay is the amount of the rate minus the employers subsidy. We know or at least we think we know that different total rates cannot be charged based on health issues. what is unclear is if different rates can be charged on the basis of health outcomes. The court will take this up in force shortly I expect.
the difference here is that the penalty for non compliance is not health related. The charge is not being assessed based on a person's health, the extra charge is both universal inside the plan and it is independent of the health of the individual. well people who refuse the tests will be charged more just like unwell people. We believe we know this is perfectly legal.
Again the courts will certainly work out the question of health related charges inside health plans. If I had to guess based on health care reform I would guess illness will not be allowed to charge differentiated rates based on illness. We do knwo that prior to passage of the health care reform legislation such differentiated rates were perfectly legal and in some cases employers imposed them. This is shocking but true. The purpose of health care inside an employer group is to share expense so no one person bares a disproportional cast of medical care. Plans are designed to share expense so they exempt broad minimum costs, deductibles, co-pays etc, in exchange for broader more expensive care. No one person pays all of their costs of care and this large level costs open heart, stroke, other surgery are shared by many.
I hope that clarifies the matter in answer to a prior question unless the EEOC, HIPPA, FMLA laws are drastically changed ill employees should not fear for their job. That is specifically prohibited.
You might not think so, the fact is CVS employs 200,000 people and covers them in a group or several group policies - not 200,000 individual policies.
Today they are going after the overweight and those with glucose problems, both Type 1 & Type II. Tomorrow it might be those with certain genetic mutations - cancer, etc.
CVS receives 59% of all business tax credits in RI, they don't seem to mind getting tax breaks from diabetics, the overweight. They don't mind selling a lot of candy, soda, cigarettes.
as a former personnel director I took HIPPA and FMLA very seriously. The only person I know the health status of was me. In fact I denied a superior access to the files when asked for them and nearly discharged. Actually I was in about 7 months later. No offense here, problems do exist, but this is a big time fine if it is screwed up and most of us who do or did this job are extremely careful.
