In light of the University's recent emails responding to rumors about the unions' position on the Staywell plan, I am posting here the UC-AFT executive director's original and more detailed explanation about union concerns. The unions are continuing to discuss the issue with UCOP and it is possible that progress will be made, but for the time being, our unit members (lecturers and librarians) continue to be opted out.
- Sandy Baringer
[More below the fold]
from Karen Sawislak:
The UC-AFT Executive Board has voted to join all other UC unions in opting out of the new UC Wellness program (Staywell). This decision was made because of very serious concerns about medical privacy and UC's misleading information about the consequences of an employee's decision to participate in the Staywell program.
Participation in the Staywell program is conditioned on the completion of a heath assessment survey. Survey participants receive a $75 gift certificate and a variety of personalized feedback and information.
In its publicity about the Staywell program, UC has stated that the information disclosed in response to the survey is "confidential" and subject to HIPAA (federal medical privacy) protections. This assurance of privacy protection is misleading.
What UC has failed to disclose about the Staywell plan is that UC reserves the right to provide survey responses to the employee's health plan -- and that UC and the affected individual have no control over how the health plan then proceeds to make use of this information. Therefore, the medical information provided by the employee is not confidential or private. Moreover, the survey responses likely will become part of the medical records maintained by the health plan for that employee.
This is extremely troubling because the surveys typically ask for a great deal of information about personal health practices, mental health, and family history. In the event that an employee might leave UC and need to seek insurance as an individual or through another employer, it is possible that a health plan might rely on this information to deny coverage or charge higher premiums
This situation came to light as a result of information requests filed by the California Nurses Association (CNA) in their current contract negotiations with UC. CNA asked that UC change their health assessment program so that it did not hand over the employee's survey responses for unknown use by their health plan. UC refused to modify the Staywell plan, but informed CNA that they, along with any other employee group, could opt-out of participation.
CNA then alerted the entire UC Union Coalition. After reviewing the correspondence between CNA and UC, all of the member unions, including UC-AFT, determined that the undisclosed privacy issues with the health assessment survey were of such serious magnitude that their unit members were best served by a decision to opt-out of participation.
In the future, it is the hope of UC-AFT and the other UC unions that any UC wellness plan will offer true privacy and confidentiality for the medical information of employees. At this point, UC is unwilling to make this commitment. Therefore, no represented employees currently are participating in the wellness plan offered for 2008.
UC now has offered to provide additional information about the Staywell program to the UC unions and has pledged to work to address these privacy concerns. We expect to receive additional briefings on the Staywell program in late January. If and when UC resolves these privacy concerns, UC-AFT will have the option to opt-in to the Staywell program.
With best wishes for 2008,
Karen Sawislak
UC-AFT Executive Director
ksawislak@cft.org
AFT Local 1966: Riverside
http://www.aft1966.org/article.php/20080124072656346