Good news for employers and for the burgeoning wellness industry.
While critics may be casting doubts on the effectiveness of wellness programs, a federal judge has rejected claims by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that an increasingly common wellness practice violates the rights of the disabled.
In a Dec. 30 ruling, U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin ruled that Flambeau, Inc.'s policy of only offering health coverage to employees who completed a health risk assessment and a biometric screening did not break federal law, reports the National Law Review.
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The EEOC had alleged that Flambeau's policy was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Its suit relied on language in the act that bars employers from requiring workers to submit to medical examinations as a condition of participation in the employee health plan.
While that appears to be exactly what Flambeau did, the company successfully argued that its policy fell into the ADA's "safe harbor," since it used the information gathered from the exams to underwrite and design its health benefits package.
Key to the ruling was Crabb's finding that there was no apparent discrimination against employees based on the results of the health screenings.
The information gathered from the screenings were not examined individually, but aggregated so that the company could assess what it needed to spend on its self-funded health plan.
Undergoing the health screenings did not produce any discrimination based on disability or illness.
In addition, ruled Crabb, the health screenings were not a condition of employment, and there was no evidence that workers ran the risk of losing their jobs if they refused to undergo them.
The ruling, however, noted that the ADA may prohibit requiring medical exams or biometric screenings if they are not part of an employee health plan. Meaning, requiring employees to undergo health tests for wellness initiatives that are separate from employer-sponsored health insurance would likely be illegal.
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