Wellness Programs in the Workplace: An Unfolding Legal Quandary for Employers (original) (raw)

Corporate Wellness Programs: Implementation Challenges in the Modern American Workplace

2013

Being healthy is important for living well and achieving longevity. In the business realm, furthermore, employers want healthy employees, as these workers tend to be more productive, have fewer rates of absenteeism, and use less of their health insurance resources. This article provides an overview of corporate “wellness” efforts in the American workplace and the concomitant challenges which employers will confront in implementing these programs. Consequently, employers and managers must reflect upon wellness policies and objectives, consult with professionals, and discuss the ramifications thereof prior to implementation. The authors herein explore how employers are implementing policies that provide incentives to employees who lead “healthy” lifestyles as well as ones that impose costs on employees who lead “unhealthy” lifestyles. The distinctive contribution of this article is that it proactively explores wellness program implementation challenges and also supplies “best practices” in the modern workplace, so employers can be better prepared when they promulgate wellness policies, and then take practical steps to help their employees become healthier and thereby help to reduce insurance costs. The article, moreover, addresses how wellness policy incentives—in the form of “carrots” as well as penalties—in the form of “sticks” could affect employees, especially “non-healthy” employees, as well as employers, particularly legally. Based on the aforementioned challenges, the authors make practical recommendations for employers and managers, so that they can fashion and implement wellness policies that are deemed to be legal, ethical, and efficacious.

Health and Wellness Policy Ethics

2013

This perspective is an ethical brief overview and examination of “wellness” policies in the modern workplace using practical examples and a general application of utilitarianism. Many employers are implementing policies that provide incentives to employees who lead a “healthy” lifestyle. The authors address how these policies could adversely affect “non-healthy” employees. There are a wide variety of ethical issues that impact wellness policies and practices in the workplace. The authors conclude that wellness programs can be ethical, while also providing a general reflective analysis of healthcare challenges in order to reflect on the externalities associated with such policies in the workplace.

Workplace Wellness Programs: Empirical Doubt, Legal Ambiguity, and Conceptual Confusion

Health Economics eJournal, 2019

Federal laws that protect workers from insurance discrimination and infringement of health privacy include exceptions for wellness programs that are ‘voluntary’ and ‘reasonably designed’ to improve health. Initially, these exceptions were intended to give employers the flexibility to create innovative wellness programs that would appeal to workers, increase productivity, and protect the workforce from preventable health conditions. Yet a detailed look at the scientific literature reveals that wellness program efficacy is quite disputed, and even highly touted examples of program success have been shown to be unreliable. Meanwhile, the latest administrative regulations on wellness programs were vacated by a district court in January, leaving the legal scope of wellness programs in flux. The U.S. District Court of Connecticut now has a case before it that could start a national overhaul of these programs. In this article we give a scientific and legal overview of wellness programs, an...

Involuntary Wellness Programs: The Case of a Large US Company

Purpose — This study investigates the recent health care reform in the US, which allows insurance companies to proactively intervene in improving long-term health of employees by providing wellness programs as part of the benefits package for employees. Design/methodology/approach — We present and analyze data on how employees of a large US Midwest “media and education” company (N = 154) perceive economic incentives towards wellbeing. Data are collected using survey methods and analyzed with a logistic regression. Findings — This study suggests that fairness, accessibility, intention to switch to a healthier lifestyle, and desire to see more health-related initiatives affect the way employees seek to participate in the new involuntary wellness programs. In contrast, satisfaction, participation, and income do not affect how these new programs are perceived. Research limitations/implications — These findings imply that HR managers should pay attention to employees who are not active in existing wellness programs, and ensure to provide support during the transition toward the new involuntary programs to avoid potential frustration, de-motivation, disengagement, and ultimately, decreasing performance. Originality/value — The study is amongst the first to analyze involuntary wellness programs in the US and it provides a basis on which to expand further studies. This research contributes to support the idea that employee wellness is unlikely to be enforced by rule or policy. The latest version of this paper is now published in "Evidence-Based Human Resource Management" Vol. 3 No 1

A Review of Employee Health and Wellness Programs in the United States

Public Policy and Administration Research, 2013

Due to rapidly rising healthcare costs, employee wellness has become an important topic for small and large companies alike. As such, many organizations are now taking a proactive approach to this issue by offering incentives for employees to get healthy and remain in "good shape." Simultaneously, some firms are penalizing employees who are smokers and those who might be above the average weight limit considered to be safe for their age and gender.

Critical Perspectives on Wellness

Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 2014

Workplace wellness programs are written into law as exceptions to otherwise protective antidiscrimination provisions, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands employers’ ability to treat workers differently based on their health. Rather than assume that wellness programs promote health and save money, here I approach them as legally sanctioned discrimination. What exactly wellness discrimination might look like in practice across many contexts is an open question, but there is good reason to be wary of the power of wellness to create and reproduce hierarchy, to promote homogeneity, narrow-mindedness, and moralism about how to live one’s life, and to cover for discrimination based on health, weight, income, age, pregnancy, and disability.

Workplace Wellness Programs: Services Offered, Participation, and Incentives

Rand health quarterly, 2015

This article leverages existing data on wellness programs to explore patterns of wellness program availability, employers' use of incentives, and program participation and utilization among employees. Researchers used two sets of data for this project: The first included data from the 2012 RAND Employer Survey, which used a nationally representative sample of U.S. employers that had detailed information on wellness program offerings, program uptake, incentive use, and employer characteristics. These data were used to answer questions on program availability, configuration, uptake, and incentive use. The second dataset included health care claims and wellness program information for a large employer. These data were analyzed to predict program participation and changes in utilization and health. The findings underscore the increasing prevalence of worksite wellness programs. About four-fifths of all U.S. employers with more than 1,000 employees are estimated to offer such program...

Moral issues in workplace health promotion

International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health, 2012

Purpose There is debate to what extent employers are entitled to interfere with the lifestyle and health of their workers. In this context, little information is available on the opinion of employees. Within the framework of a workplace health promotion (WHP) program, moral considerations among workers were investigated. Methods Employees from five companies were invited to participate in a WHP program. Both participants (n = 513) and non-participants (n = 205) in the program filled in a questionnaire on individual characteristics, lifestyle, health, and opinions regarding WHP. Results Nineteen percent of the non-participants did not participate in the WHP program because they prefer to arrange it themselves, and 13% (also) preferred to keep private life and work separate. More participants (87%) than non-participants (77%) agreed with the statement that it is good that employers try to improve employees' health (v 2 = 12.78, p = 0.002), and 26% of the non-participants and 21% of the participants think employer interference with their health is a violation of their privacy. Employees aged 50 year and older were more likely to agree with the latter statement than younger workers (OR = 1.56, 95% CI 1.02-2.39).

Incorporating wellness into employee benefit strategies--why it makes sense

Benefits quarterly, 2013

By putting together a comprehensive wellness strategy, employers are not only "doing the right thing" but also are able to see, believe and maintain the tangible return on investment (ROI) that wellness programs are capable of delivering. This article discusses employers' ROI from wellness initiatives, as well as innovations that support a culture of wellness and what enhanced opportunities for increasing employee wellness are available under health care reform. It also describes how wellness is a component of population health management, as well as a core component of the health care delivery system.

Toward a critical theory of corporate wellness

BioSocieties, 2017

In the U.S., 'employee wellness' programs are increasingly attached to employerprovided health insurance. These programs attempt to nudge employees, sometimes quite forcefully, into healthy behaviors such as smoking cessation and exercise routines. Despite being widely promoted as saving on healthcare costs, numerous studies undermine this rationale. After documenting the programs' failure to deliver a positive return on investment, we analyze them as instead providing an opportunity for employers to exercise increasing control over their employees. Based on human capital theory and neoliberal models of subjectivity that emphasize personal control and responsibility, these programs treat wellness as a lifestyle that employees must be cajoled into adopting, extending the workplace not just into the home but into the bodies of workers, and entrenching the view that one belongs to one's workplace. At the same time, their selective endorsement of health programs (many scientifically unsupported) produce a social truth of wellness framed as fitness for work. We conclude by arguing that the public health initiatives occluded by the private sector's promotion of wellness programs would be a much better investment of resources.