"Wellness" Health Plan Penalty Ends at Penn State nytimes/2013/09/19/business/after-uproar-penn-state-suspends-penalty-fee-in-wellness-plan.html?src=recg By NATASHA SINGER Published: September 18, 2013 After weeks of vociferous objections by faculty members, Pennsylvania State University said on Wednesday it was suspending part of a new employee wellness program that some professors had criticized as coercive and financially punitive. Enlarge This Image Kalim Bhatti for The New York Times Prof. Matthew Woessner, left, and Prof. James Ruiz opposed the Penn State employee wellness plan that asks for medical and other personal information. Related • Technophoria: On Campus, a Faculty Uprising Over Personal Data (September 15, 2013) In particular, the university said it was suspending a $100 monthly noncompliance fee that was to be levied on employees who declined to fill out an online questionnaire. The form, administered by WebMD Health Services, a health management company, asked employees for intimate details about their jobs, marital situation and finances. It also asked female employees whether they planned to become pregnant over the next year. Last week, in an emotionally charged faculty senate meeting held on the main campus, several female professors told administrators that requiring women to answer such questions — or pay a fine — amounted to an invasion of their privacy. In a statement on Wednesday, Rodney A. Erickson, the president of Penn State, said that the university had heeded faculty concerns about the perceived invasiveness of the questionnaire and the punitive nature of the fine. “We have decided to suspend the $100-per-month surcharge so that people who are uncomfortable with any aspect of the survey will not feel as if they are being penalized,” Mr. Ericksonsaid in the statement. Many employers use financial incentives to encourage employees to participate in workplace wellness programs, a trend that is likely to widen with the new health care law. Under the wellness rules for the Affordable Care Act that take effect next January, companies can offer a reward of up to 30 percent of health costs for employees who complete a participatory program like a risk assessment, or biometric tests like waist measurement. But the uproar at Penn State illustrates the pitfalls employers can face in imposing incentive-based wellness programs without first obtaining employee support. On a larger level, it suggests that employers’ increasing efforts to cut their health care costs are on a collision course with employees’ boundaries about medical privacy. “The big picture here is that, with the Affordable Care Act, the amount of the incentive has grown significantly and employers are jumping into this,” said Michael O’Donnell, the director of the Health Management Research Center at the University of Michigan. “We are going to see stops and starts as people figure out how to do that.” Penn State adopted the wellness program, which currently applies to nonunion employees including professors and staff, at the recommendation of Highmark Health Services, a company that administers Penn State’s health care claims. That led some faculty members to criticize administrators for adopting a wellness program without seeking input on its design from outside experts. In its statement on Wednesday, the university said it would now form a joint task force with faculty members to seek expert advice on both the adoption of the wellness program and health benefits matters generally. Industry experts also said Penn State stumbled by using a stick rather than a carrot approach to motivate employees. Professors complained, for instance, that the $100 monthly fine seemed like a strong-arm tactic, considering that some employees earned less than $50,000 annually. The original plan came under heavy criticism last weekend on social media. “Wellness plans causing trouble,” Dr. Eric Topol, a prominent cardiologist, posted on his Twitter feed. “A better model desperately needed!” “I’d object to WebMD’s #wellness questionnaire, too,” Janice McCallum, a health data marketing strategist, posted on Twitter. Penn State instituted the wellness plan in an effort to slow double-digit annual growth in its health expenditures. The university is self-insured, which means that it directly covers the health costs of some 40,000 employees, spouses and dependents — at an estimated cost this fiscal year of $217 million. Penn State faculty members welcomed the university’s decision to suspend the noncompliance fee and to set up a task force to seek faculty input on possible alternatives. “By removing the penalty, at least temporarily, they have removed the sticking point that was the biggest concern for employees,” said Matthew C. Woessner, an associate professor of political science. “It gives us hope that whatever future program they undertake, it will be undertaken with due diligence and high ethical standards.”
Posted on: Sun, 22 Sep 2013 02:08:05 +0000
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