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21% of Large Employers Collect Health Information From Employees' Mobile Apps or Wearable Devices, Report Says (axios.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Kaiser Family Foundation's annual review of employer-based insurance shows that 21% of large employers collect health information from employees' mobile apps or wearable devices, as part of their wellness programs -- up from 14% last year. Wellness programs are voluntary, and so is contributing your health information to them. But among companies that offer a wellness program, just 9% of employers (including 35% of large employers) offer workers an incentive to participate.
US for-profit health care directly responsible for this. If your main business function is insurance, then your main business driver is to minimize the risks and recover costs. Then it becomes logical to exploit personal information of your "customers" and violate their privacy to the maximum possible extend.
Eat balls, comrade.
From the article:
Small businesses still aren't on this bandwagon, with only 5% of them collecting workers' health information.
They say it like it is a bad thing
good thing the ADA stops them for blacklisting people based on that data.
With everyone and their mother now tracking their vitals on something worn around their wrists, I'm kind of surprised it's not north of 30% already.
... then location information. And if location information, then a wealth of information about everything from various preferences to religious practices to social life.
I guess that the best one can hope for now is that one has a good owner.
Check your premises.
Soros funding at work.
They tried that at my job.
But there was no benefits for you to participate in it.
Not even a price reduction. Just a CHANCE to win something.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
But this company is self insured and has an insurance company monitor and pay claims. We get breaks off our premiums if we participate in the wellness program.
Why people think this is a bad thing, I don't understand.
It's not like insurance companies don't already have your health information on file, now is it?
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
State or national health care is needed.
Then the state doesn't need to snoop. They can just subsidize healthy habits via tax breaks (e.g. for gyms, reduced hikers' fees at national/state parks, no sales tax on healthy/unprocessed food) while taxing the hell out of unhealthy habits (encourage walking vs driving via congestion fees, tax cigarettes, tax weed, tax booze). Say what you will about taxes, they're a shitload less intrusive and abusive than a private employer knowing what you're doing most of the day, when you sleep, how long you sleep, when you fuck, etc.
Incentivization/disincentives via taxes is how it works in most of the developed world.
If a company offers a wellness program and charges a surcharge when a wellness visit to a doctor is not performed it is not voluntary. 600$ penalty is not voluntary!
forced drivers insurance is not mandated gambling
Fitbit collects the wearable data. The employer only sees it in aggregate form across its entire employee population. The employer does not collect the health information, nor have access to it in an identifiable way.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
The programmes are opt-in, the data collection is also opt-in, and 91% of employers provide no incentives to opt in.
The average consumer duck doesn't have a damn clue about how much data they leak on a daily bases. Which is why it's absolutely vital to make sure everyone you know keeps their systems absolutely locked down. And even better, bin your smart phones all together and just use a dumb phone. Failing that, don't keep your phone logged into anything at all times. I can't speak of Apple products but your average Android phone will work just fine without being logged into any services. It takes a few extra steps but you can log into whatever services you need long enough to use them or update something and just log out. There's no reason to let these big-tech parasites leach away your privacy one byte of monitizable data at a time.
Sure they can incentivize you to do healthy things with sin taxes.
Then some do-gooder writes a law that mandates you wear a tracking device (for your own good) and reduce or withhold medical services if you refuse. Remember in your scenario the state owns all health care services and they write and enforce the laws so you have no choice in the matter.
At least if a private corporation is tracking you, they don't have the power of the police or taxing agencies to enforce compliance.
Bought one to keep an eye on my heart rate. Discovered after opening the thing and exchanging multiple emails with support that the device is utterly useless if you're unwilling to join the cult and allow Fitbit to track your data. Couldn't even set the time and use it as a watch without signing up.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Most people would probably sign up anyway without knowing any better, but there should be an option for those of us who value our privacy to just use local connectivity with a personal device (phone, tablet, computer).
They suckered money for one sale out of me, but I now warn anyone who'll listen to stay away from the brand.
As someone who works for one of these companies that has a "wellness" program, it's not so voluntary. Companies get an insurance break for having a certain percentage of employees participate. In our case, we need 25% employee wellness program participation which includes an online survey asking question about weight, activity levels, eating habits, hobbies - all of which they claim are non-personal. Given that the organization gets a cost reduction for participation levels, you can guess how hard participation is "encouraged"...
The Cock-bros spend 10 times the amount of money raping the american people as sores.
Obesity is a problem in the US. So is fat shaming.
Instead of a dog walker, be a watch-walker after working hours. Charge a buck per watch per day, put 100 watches on your arms and legs, and go for a nice, relaxing three-mile walk...
Oh yeah, Gattaca, Gattaca!
Why are employers involved in our healthcare, at all? They need something done and will pay us to do it for them. Why are they managing our health?
It is like going to Starbucks for a coffee, and when you offer to pay, the barrista asks, "Thanks, but ... aren't you going to house-sit my miniature pinscher?"
tone
A lot of employers are now using a program named Vitality, that is ostensibly to improve employee health and reduce their premiums yada yada yada, but we all know they're collecting data with the intent of fucking over people with more serious medical issues, i.e. the "expensive" illnesses.
No one at my company is being fooled for one second about the end-goals of this program. I don't participate (I'm a contractor and blissfully exempt) but I woldn't even if I could. You have to wear a fitbit-type device ALL THE TIME and there are regular "health screenings" where they get blood and urine samples.
No one doubts they're looking for illegal substances or indicators of potentially serious health issues coming up- not so they can help you but so management can eventually find a way to get rid of these soon-to-be-expensive employees.
After all, health insurance companies aren't in business to pay claims...on the contrary, they work hard to deny every claim they can. If you think otherwise, you're a fool.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...