Dive Brief:
- The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has announced a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that clarifies that employer wellness programs are permitted under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but stipulates some limitations to protect employees.
- Those stipulations include limits to financial incentives, confidentiality of medical information and prohibitions against firing, disciplining or denying health coverage to those who choose not to participate.
- Notable specifics include: incentives can be up to 30% of the total cost of employee-only coverage; and medical information collected through a wellness program may only be disclosed to employers in an aggregate form that doesn't reveal members' identities.
Dive Insight:
The proposed rule may leave employee wellness programs more subject to scrutiny and interpretation. Among other things, the rule requires that those programs that ask for information about employee health or medical exams "must be reasonably likely to promote health or prevent disease," according to the EEOC announcement.
That said, most programs can be expected to fall within the guidelines. As the Associated Press reports, virtually all large businesses offer some variety of wellness benefit through their health plan, but fewer than 4 in 10 actually use financial incentives to push participation or the meeting of health goals, and in most of those cases the penalties and rewards are well under the proposed limit.
The NPRM can be found in the Public Inspection section of the Federal Register. It will officially be published Monday, April 20, 2015, and the public will have 60 days (until Friday, June 19) to submit comments.