CVS to employees: Hand over your health info or pay more for insurance

CVS is launching a “voluntary” new program for employees that allows them to avoid paying more for health insurance, if they just share personal medical information — weight, body fat, glucose levels, etc. — with the company.

ABC News reports that CVS staffer have until May 1, 2014, to make an appointment with a doctor in order to gather the required information.
“Our benefits program is evolving to help our colleagues take more responsibility for improving their health and managing health-associated costs,” explains a CVS rep to the Boston Herald. “All personal health data is kept private by our wellness program’s third party administrator and is never shared with CVS Caremark.”

We just hope these files don’t end up on a city sidewalk like the bunch of old prescriptions a Manhattan CVS left outside for anyone to pick through.
The CVS program is just the latest among companies trying the carrot/stick approach to keeping healthcare costs down.

However, many of the larger companies that have started such programs offer discounts or refunds for employees who take part in certain wellness programs, rather than penalize employees who feel it may be invasive for their employer to request such personal information.

“The approach they’re taking is based on the assumption that somehow these people need a whip, they need to be penalized in order to make themselves healthy,” Patient Privacy Rights founder Dr. Deborah Peel tells ABC News. “It’s technology-enhanced discrimination on steroids.”

A company I used to work for did something similar to this. The first year, all you needed to do to get health insurance discounts was get a health assessment done. It focused on key numbers (BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.). If they were within a certain range you could get the discounts.

The second year, if you still wanted the discounts, you had to not only work with a company provided health coach to set and reach health goals, you ALSO had to show you were making progress on those goals within six months. No progress = No discounts for next year.

I have a real problem with this approach because it also penalizes healthy people. I myself am 30 and in good health, there is little I could gain and few (if any) health goals I would need to reach if working with a coach. I already take good care of myself. Even though my numbers are good enough to qualify for a discount, I’d probably still be denied because of that “progress” requirement.

These companies say they are taking this approach to improve the health of workers, I think they are doing it as a stealth way to raise premiums. They know a lot of employees aren’t going to want to jump through all these hoops and will just pay the higher premiums.