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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.
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.
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.
forced drivers insurance is not mandated gambling
cvs wellness had an lawsuit as the workers had to pay for the health screening needed.
Also they wanted to know the level of sexual activity as well.
Level of sexual activity? Constantly being reamed by my employer. WHEEEEE! SQUEEEEAL!
The thought occurs that if there were free form comments, one might write, "High level of activity. In fact, getting ****ed right now!"
Check your premises.
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.
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"...
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...
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
If this happened in a socialist society like France or Quebec, people would literally be rioting in the streets. And yes, sometimes mass strikes, riots, and shutdowns are needed to preserve freedom.
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...