Big Brother has arrived...neatly packaged in “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” AKA Obamacare. Hubby received a notice today at work about “FREE BIOMETRIC SCREENINGS” for himself and his dependents that could save us from $17-$34 a month on premiums. (which, of course, doesn’t do much to offset the 29% increase which went into effect July 1, but I digress).
Right now, the biometric screening is voluntary. Which is a good thing because we have no intention of selling out our privacy for $34 a month. However, employer biometric screening and individual wellness plans will be MANDATORY under Obamacare in the not too distant future.
From a press release from a company called BIOQ, published August 14, 2013:
BioIQ Helps Employers Comply with New ACA Wellness Requirements
Health Improvement Technology Company Helps Companies Engage Employees in a Non-Discriminatory Manner to Measure Individual and Population Health
Santa Barbara, Calif. – August 14, 2013 –
BioIQ announced that its health-improvement technology platform helps employers comply with the final regulations of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Leveraging the BioIQ platform, organizations throughout the United States can increase wellness program participation, avoid discrimination, and meet stated health and wellness goals…
BioIQ offers a comprehensive set of products and services to help employers achieve and verify compliance with ACA wellness requirements. For example, BioIQ Dimensions offers several health-screening methods for gathering biometric data from employees and dependents to enforce nondiscrimination. BioIQ program participants who are unable to take a blood test or meet stated health standards due to a medical condition are allowed to request an alternative or a waiver. BioIQ Axis connects individuals to specific interventions based on their identified risks and needs. BioIQ Ecosystem funnels participants into an array of complementary health, wellness, and disease-management solutions to improve their health. This patented “closed-loop” wellness platform helps all participants to earn rewards by meeting agreed-upon milestones and outcomes. Specific risk-factors trigger targeted interventions. Secure personal health dashboard enable participants to track their progress and allow administrators to manage participation, outcomes, rewards and incentives, all while protecting personal health information as per HIPAA requirements.
“To comply with the ACA mandates, employers need to engage the entire population, carefully track the results, and provide direct interventions to help participants achieve healthy outcomes and meet personal wellness goals,” said Justin Bellante, CEO of BioIQ.,,,
Outcomes-based programs (also called health-contingent wellness programs) not only require participation; they also require individuals to attain or maintain specific health outcomes as measured by biometric screening or a health risk assessment. Corporate wellness programs must track individual results related to each requirement and allow employees to take additional steps to achieve the stated outcomes to obtain wellness incentives or rewards. These programs must also offer reasonable alternatives for people who have a specific condition that precludes them from achieving the outcome, so that the individual can earn the incentives via other agreed-upon means, as validated by a recent Internal Revenue Service bulletin. Read the entire press release here: https://www.bioiq.com/press
So now your employer will be involved in tracking your health & lifestyle? That’s right folks!
If your cholesterol is too high…you smoke…you drink too much…you take sleeping pills…you are overweight…your employer must design an individual program for you to improve.
Can we just do the jobs employers hired us to do? Do you have to take a sample of my blood and tell me how to live?
Belize is looking better and better.
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