CVS Employees Penalized For Not Reporting Weight, Body Fat To Insurance

CVS Caremark, owners of the CVS Pharmacy chain with two Livingston locations, announced Wednesday it is telling workers who use its health insurance plan to have a doctor determine their height, weight, body fat, blood pressure, cholesterol and other health indicators as part of a new “wellness review,” according to a published report.

According to The Huffington Post, quoting a published report in the Boston Herald, the company is also asking workers to give permission to the insurer to turn over that information to a firm that provides benefits support to CVS, the Boston Herald reports.

Workers who don’t take part in the voluntary “wellness review,” paid for by CVS, will have to pay an annual $600 penalty, the report says.

Michael DeAngelis, a CVS spokesman, wrote in an e-mail statement to The Huffington Post that, compliant with privacy laws, the company will not have access to the health information. Instead, the information will only be reviewed by the firm administering CVS’ benefits.

A company spokesman told ABC News Wednesday night, “All of the people we cover under our health plans will be more accountable for taking control of our health and our costs.”

Michael DeAngelis, a CVS spokesman, said in a email to The Huffington Post, “Our benefits program is evolving to help our colleagues engage more actively to improve their health and manage health-associated costs,. An initial step to accomplish this goal is a health screening and wellness review so that colleagues know their key health metrics in order to take action to improve their overall health, if necessary,” he wrote.

The ABC report said if employees screening numbers for body weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure are not good, they will be given a year to “make the numbers better or you may have few health options to choose from next time you enroll.”

CVS Pharmacies are located at 277 Eisenhower Pkwy and 184 S Livingston Ave in Cedar Grove.