To UC-AFT represented lecturers and librarians:
I am writing as a follow up to my January message about the new UC Wellness
program (Staywell). As you know, the UC-AFT Executive Board had joined all
of the other UC unions in opting out of this program, because it was not
clear to the Board that UC had made adequate provisions to ensure members'
privacy.
Last month, UC management arranged meetings with its unions and with
representatives from Staywell. At the meeting with UC-AFT, it became clear
that the privacy concerns that our Executive Board had expressed were being
addressed. Most importantly, we have been assured that the Staywell
program will ask for your permission before sharing your personal
information with anyone else.
Therefore, UC-AFT has decided to opt back in to the program so as to allow
you to make this choice for yourself. Within the next few months, you will
be getting notification of this from Staywell, and you can fully
participate, if you choose to do so. (Note that this program is voluntary,
and there is a modest financial incentive to participate.)
The union leadership does NOT, however, make any recommendation about
whether you should or should not participate. Some concerns remain. Though
the UC health plans indicated, in writing, that the health survey
information Staywell collects would not affect future insurance eligibility
or rates, we remain concerned about possible harm to our members, despite
this pledge. In addition, we are wary of electronic data security issues at
the health plans.
The Staywell health assessment survey will ask participants if they will
allow their survey information to be released to their health plan. If you
do decide to participate, we strongly encourage you to refuse permission
when you are faced with this choice.
Most other UC unions have continued to opt-out of the Staywell program on
behalf of all those they represent. These unions have expressed concern
about the possible future misuse of the wellness plan to determine
individual health insurance premiums and coverage for UC employees. For
example, some private sector employers now require that employees
participate in wellness plans in order to receive lower insurance premiums
and co-pays.
UC management has not promised us that they will never implement a similar
practice, and therefore, UC-AFT shares our fellow UC unions' concerns about
possible abuses of a wellness plan. We have told UCOP that while we support
the access to health information and counseling now offered by the Staywell
plan, we will strongly oppose any future misuse of such programs.
In the end, the UC-AFT Executive Board was persuaded that the Staywell
program has adequate privacy protections and wanted to allow members to
decide for themselves whether to make use of this wellness program. As you
make your own decisions about whether or not to participate in Staywell,
please be mindful of the issues outlined above.
Karen Sawislak
Executive Director
University Council--AFT
274 14th Street
Oakland, CA 94612
510-740-0145
fax: 510-808-0378
Why UC-AFT opted-out of new UC wellness program (Staywell)
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
