Patient Engagement

Are ‘voluntary’ corporate wellness programs a form of coercion?

At the center of a lawsuit over corporate wellness programs is a question: What does voluntary mean?

Question mark heap on table concept for confusion,

The appeal of employer wellness programs for corporations is the hope they will reduce their medical expenses and boost productivity. But the flip side of these programs, as the AARP and other groups see it, is that staff feel like they’re coerced into taking part in these programs or else face fines.

In a summary judgment this week, a federal district court judge threw out a rule allowing employers to call corporate wellness programs voluntary in cases where employees face fines for lack of participation, according to STAT. The ruling is a win for the AARP which had taken issue with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s stance on the issue.

Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has called for the EEOC to produce a “reasoned explanation” for describing workplace wellness programs as voluntary even when they force workers who opt out to pay penalties, STAT noted.

The source of the problem is that although the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and the 2008 Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act both permit employers to gather medical information as long as it is voluntary, both laws fail to define what voluntary means in those situations.

Still, in the short term, it looks like it will be a hollow victory since Judge Bates has decided to let the EEOC’s 2016 rules remain intact for now. He argued it would be too disruptive to change them right away. The disruption he refers to could mean that employers would have to pay back staff who were forced to pay fines, but employees would also have to pay back incentives awarded to them by their company.

Steven Wojcik, vice president for public policy at the National Business Group on Health, told STAT  that “the EEOC rules are not perfect but they clarify underlying ambiguities in the law and have helped assure that employees and their families can benefit from these programs that promote their well-being.”

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for the EEOC to come up with a more expansive definition of what means by voluntary.

Photo: bernie_photo, Getty Images

Shares0
Shares0