CVS Employees Penalized For Not Reporting Weight, Body Fat To Insurance
Pharmacy workers, including Bloomfield store employees, who don’t take part in the voluntary health program will have to pay an annual $600 penalty.
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CVS Caremark, owners of the CVS Pharmacy chain that includes a store in Bloomfield, announced Wednesday it is telling workers who use its health insurance plan to have a doctor determine their height, weight, body fat, blood pressure, cholesterol and other health indicators as part of a new “wellness review,” according to a published report.
According to The Huffington Post, quoting a published report in the Boston Herald, the company is also asking workers to give permission to the insurer to turn over that information to a firm that provides benefits support to CVS, the Boston Herald reports.
Workers who don’t take part in the voluntary “wellness review,” paid for by CVS, will have to pay an annual $600 penalty, the report says.
Michael DeAngelis, a CVS spokesman, wrote in an e-mail statement to The Huffington Post that, compliant with privacy laws, the company will not have access to the health information. Instead, the information will only be reviewed by the firm administering CVS’ benefits.
A company spokesman told ABC News Wednesday night, “All of the people we cover under our health plans will be more accountable for taking control of our health and our costs.”
Michael DeAngelis, a CVS spokesman, said in a email to The Huffington Post, “Our benefits program is evolving to help our colleagues engage more actively to improve their health and manage health-associated costs,. An initial step to accomplish this goal is a health screening and wellness review so that colleagues know their key health metrics in order to take action to improve their overall health, if necessary,” he wrote.
The ABC report said if employees screening numbers for body weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure are not good, they will be given a year to “make the numbers better or you may have few health options to choose from next time you enroll.”
Nando
10:48 am on Sunday, March 24, 2013
A voluntary health test with a price if not taken. Wow
Arbie Brown
10:48 am on Sunday, March 24, 2013
I will not be shopping at CVS ever again, and I will be moving my daughter's three monthly prescriptions to another pharmacy. The audacity of demanding employees give up private information to a company paid by the employer and agreeing to allow that info to be supplied to yet another company is unbelievable! The fact that jobs are so scarce forces one to choose between sacrificing their privacy or having to pay for the privilege of keeping their privacy.
The idea that they guarantee confidentiality is laughable. Experience and history should tell us that if the company (CVS) who is paying these companies want this information, it would be served up on a platter, employee privacy goes out the window. Anyone who believes otherwise is an idiot.
Crissy
12:44 pm on Monday, March 25, 2013
Good for them! Maybe my health insurance wouldnt be so high if we were all held accountable for our bad eating and health habits!!!! I take care of myself and shouldnt be penalized for eating right and excercising by paying the same as someone the same age who eats McDonalds and smokes like a chimney! You go CVS !
Arbie Brown
5:08 pm on Monday, March 25, 2013
Crissy, wake up! It wouldn't be so high if the insurance companies actually provided insurance instead of investing the money elsewhere and losing it. That raises our insurance faster than anything else because, above all, they MUST still show a profit to their shareholders. They must also put their names on major sports arenas (Met Life Stadium) and other PR endeavors. Let's not forget the 7-figure annual bonuses the higher-ups get for providing that profit, those dividends and finding those places to stick a corporate logo. Instead of laying out those millions and millions of dollars, why do they not lower their premiums?
Next they will be charging women who wear dresses in the winter or high heel shoes, or anyone who drinks more than one beer within a nine week period, people who eat meat that is not well done, people who allow their children to associate with other germ-carrying children, people who have children that own bikes or go ice-skating. The mode of discrimination can go on and on and on. At what point will you stand up and tell these mega-corporations to stay out of your business.
Do you really believe they will give you a lower rate because you "take care of yourself"? No, Crissy, next they will zero in on something you do in order to get more money into their pockets.