If your company hasn't launched a wellness program, this might be the year.
As benefits enrollment for 2016 approaches, more employers than ever are expected to nudge workers toward plans that screen them for risks, monitor their activity and encourage them to take the right pills, food and exercise.
This involves a huge collection of health data outside the established medical system, not only by wellness vendors such as Redbrick,Audax and Vitality but also by companies offering gym services, smartphone apps and devices that track steps and heartbeats. Such partners pass worker results to the wellness providers.
Standards to keep such information confidential have developed more slowly than the industry. That raises risks it could be abused for workplace discrimination, credit screening or marketing, consumer advocates say.
Here's what to ask about your company's plan.
[For more of this story, written by John Hancock & Julie Appleby, go to http://www.npr.org/sections/he...out-wellness-privacy]
Comments (0)