Employee wellness programs are popular with employers seeking to improve employee well-being and boost productivity, as well as stem rising health care costs. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 94 percent of employers with more than 200 workers and 63 percent of smaller employers offer some sort of wellness program. The prevalence of such programs likely will increase over the next few years following the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which permits employers to expand upon existing wellness programs.
While the ACA codified the long-standing regulations implementing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1998 (HIPAA), which expressly permit such programs, there are unanswered questions as to whether wellness programs, and particularly incentive-based programs that may reward employees for meeting various health benchmarks, nonetheless may be discriminatory under other federal laws. On May 8, 2013, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) heard from representatives of business and advocacy groups about the need for guidance as to how employers can avoid violating federal anti-discrimination laws in the design and implementation of wellness programs.
