Worksite Wellness

[admin]

Posted by: Ann Dzwonchyk, Evangelical Community Hospital

Date: December 02, 2014 1:55 PM

Good Afternoon,
Does anyone’s hospital offer worksite wellness? Example: offer blood screens and flu shots to business at a discount. Do you count any of these services in CBISA? ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Response: Darla Wertenberger, Saint Lukes
Date: December 03, 2014 12:19 PM
Yes, we do worksite wellness and only charge to cover supplies for screenings. We count labor/travel expenses.
For flu shots, we bill insurance companies and do not count
_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Response: Emily Bales, Athens Regional Health System

Date: December 03, 2014 12:25 PM

Ann,
Our organization offers worksite wellness and as long as they are not hospital employees we count everything we do (minus what is paid for) on our CB report.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Response: Kevin A. Alvarnaz, WellSpan Health
Date: December 03, 2014 12:30 PM

Good afternoon Ann – our health care system does offer comprehensive employee wellness services (i.e., wellness portal access, wellness screenings, flu shots, educational programs, health coaching) to external business clients. Since these are primarily revenue generating (even if offered for a discount), we do not count them as a community benefit. While the case could be made that there is an “identified need” for these services in identifying chronic disease risk, we still believe that our primary goals with employee wellness services are to establish relationships with local employers and to manage the health of their employees (typically at a cost to the employer).
We also conduct annual wellness screenings among our internal employees who participate in our employee wellness program. We do not count these either as community benefit as they are only available to our employees.
– Kevin
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Response: Constance E. Hengel, Lenoir Memorial Hospital
Date: December 03, 2014 12:39 PM
Emily and Ann-This is what we do too, as we incur revenue and expenses but do not have to do this work and the expense far exceeds the revenues but it generates good community relationships and health benefit, and there is no one else to do it but our hospital where we live. Thanks…C
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Posted by: Bill Fortenberry, Public Relations
Date: December 03, 2014 3:24 PM
We provide this service as well, but, generally, do not count the expense as community benefit since the target audience is generally commercially insured and the service is a contractual agreement between our occupational health department and the participating business or industry. One of the “tests” for community benefit is motivation for providing the service. Our motivation is to create down-stream revenue from establishing a relationship with employers and their employees. We do count employee health fair expenses when we send departments focused on awareness or on a need identified in our CHNA, such as smoking cessation or diabetes management.
______________________________________________________________________________________________
Response: Caron Lanouette, Community Benefit Consulting, LLC
Date: December 03, 2014 5:19 PM
I have to agree with Kevin. I would not count these as Community Benefit. As well as his reasons, in most cases the external business employees have health insurance through the employer. That gives them other resources for screening, flu shots, etc. You are not responding to an underserved or underinsured population.
As some of you have mentioned, it provides good community relations, but that is not the same as community benefit.
The exceptions would be if there really is no other option for the screenings in the immediate area or it’s a company that has a large uninsured workforce involving very low paying part time jobs.
______________________________________________________________________________________________

[Author]

Posts