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Employee Wellness Programs: Perk or Punishment?

It’s become a popular catch-phrase in corporate America this year: Wellness Programs. It’s why staffers are seen walking around the office wearing Fitbit devices that measure their vital statistics. So reports U.S. News & World Report.

Organizations have gone beyond subsidizing health club memberships or at-work Weight Watchers meetings. Now many companies are actively involved in getting their employees to work out, shape up, eat healthier, etc.

Some firms sponsor informal weight-loss or fitness competitions where winners get some type of recognition, if not monetary rewards. They even offer incentives to lower health-insurance premiums through company-provided plans, provided workers opt-in to fitness or yoga classes. It’s all in the name of a good cause, in the spirit of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and most employees would jump at the chance to lower their insurance costs even if it means paying more attention to their personal health.

But there’s a catch. Participating in wellness programs – especially by agreeing to participate in employer-sponsored fitness classes – may entail sharing personal health information with their companies that staffers might prefer to keep to themselves: e.g., which medications they take; their health history, physical and/or mental; scars or other visible defects they may not want to share with colleagues in fitness clothes.

Most, if not all, corporate wellness programs offer an “opt-out” provision, emphasizing that participation in such activities is strictly voluntary. The trouble is, opting out may result in an actual increase in monthly healthcare premiums, thereby putting pressure on employees to opt in, penalizing them for opting out, and placing an unfair burden on lower-tier wage earners. The opt-in/opt-out feature is creating conflicts with both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Americans with Disabilities Act, both of which seek to guarantee employee fairness, non-discrimination, as well as confidentiality.

Read the full article from U.S. News & World Report.

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