Spurred on by incentives from the Affordable Care Act, as well as a desire to lower health-care costs and help employees stay healthy, U.S. companies are increasingly turning to wellness programs. These programs can range from weight-management assistance to healthy on-site food choices or fitness programs, but all are designed to give employees incentive to improve and maintain physical well-being. While wellness programs may be considered a positive for many employees, they are not without legal risk, which may come in the form of discrimination claims from workers who assert that these programs force them to reveal health information that they would prefer not to disclose.
A recent complaint from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the first that the federal agency has filed against a company because of its wellness program, claims that one employer’s program violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The EEOC complaint raises questions around what wellness programs can and cannot ask of employees, and how employees can be incentivized to participate in a manner that doesn’t run afoul of the law.
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