What are your thoughts on Honeywell Biometric Screening?
29 replies (most recent on top)
how about an IQ test for management?
The program does not encourage people to do better; it punishes them for NOT doing better.
It's invasive. I think it crosses the line.
Even if you are 100% clean in terms of BMI, BP and t-b-cco, the high deductible medical insurance s—s.
Better than nothing? I guess it is, but they have devalued NA employee compensation by going down this road.
Last year I didn't take the assessment and ate the Surcharge for the screening and the t-b-cco. THis year I took the screening and failed for the t-b-cco....they waived the screening surcharge but my t-b-cco surcharge was jacked up to equal last year's price for missing both....that's how I know this is a scam
5lqc, it's great that biometric screening programs keep your spouse busy, but the notion that this program encourages people to be healthy is flawed. It just catches them when a few numbers are out of an arbitrary range. Making people pay a penalty for this is punitive, not helpful.
Many people are already on top of their health, especially those with known issues, and many of those issues would not show up in the numbers collected by these screenings. So the program catches and fines a few smokers, pre-diabetics and a few folks who need to get their bp or cholesterol down. It does not promote health throughout the employee base.
What HAS been beneficial at places I've worked in the past is a paid-for annual complete physical from a doctor of our choice, with the results kept between the employee and the doctor. As someone mentioned below, for all the money the company is throwing at outside medical management services that provide no more help than a google search, support group, or an app on your phone can, we could keep ourselves healthier if the health plan had a lower deductible and paid doctors more so the good ones would be willing to take us on as patients.
Why is everyone focusing on weight? Someone can be slender and still have blood pressure issues, etc. My spouse is a Nurse Practitioner and sees patients from different companies that have similar biometric programs to Honeywell’s. A program that encourages people to better their health is a good thing!
It is nothing you can't get on your own for cheap, without risking the company knowing all this about you. I don't trust the company's intentions or use of the information and so i just s— up the penalty.
I am shopping for outside insurance and may go with it due to the insurance they offer being so very pathetic. For the same money (our payroll deduction plus the potential penalties) I can choose an outside policy that has a MUCH lower deductible and the company doesn't have any line to sight about my biometrics.
I'm naturally slim (some call me skinny) but fat shamming is wrong. I'm sure we could find something about you to degrade. Size has nothing to do with productivity.
I believe that your pay stub is now HIPA protected information because you can use it to Infer health data.
Time to call the scum bag lawyers. Worth an argument.
My blood pressure will go up thinking about getting penalized for a high blood pressure.
Did everyone see that they may (will be) adding blood pressure and cholesterol levels as other items that have penalties in 2020 using your 2019 screening results as a baseline?
@2wqj - you are lucky. This testing is actually pretty common. Gives the health insurance company a good way to see the risk in the company's employee base.
What a f—ing joke. Never seen this at any company. Way for company to save money on health insurance. I've never worked for a c-apy company like Honeywell.
1svv, please explain to us why the people who you say this program benefited did not have the freedom to lose the weight or stop smoking all along? A $500 or $1500 penalty might have been some impetus in some cases, but corporate-driven healthcare socialism is not the way to keep the majority of us well.
Eliminate all the costly and intrusive add-on "services" they require us to join and give us that money back in the form of lower deductibles and the freedom to choose our path to wellness.
Those dial-in services can only offer advice using what is written in the scripts and "reference ranges" they have in their databases. Everyone else with non-standard issues is left to either take that irrelevant and possibly harmful advice or seek help outside the system at their own expense. Just a thought...a person can smoke or have an above-average BMI and still perform well in their job.
I get an exemption. I’m overweight; yet I run 10ks. Constant dieter. I’m also an older woman post-menopausal and hypothyroid. It’s discriminatory to put the same standard on me as a 22 year old male. That male often just has to drop a few beers a week to drop his BMI.
Hon requires no documentation from your doctor other than a signature. Talk to your doctor. You can get an exemption to set an alternate goal. One year I did sleep hygiene as a goal. Positive result: no more night or early India calls!! This year I’ve got a goal of running 4 10ks.
Those who call us lazy or fat are wrong. My cholesterol and triglycerides are low, same as BP. I’ll challenge DA to the rock n roll marathon...
Hon does stuff like stock their vending machines with junk food and drink. Sleep-deprives us with their globalization. Stress is a huge factor too. Look up cortisol.
There’s no fitness center at my site. I often do my training in the dark on my neighborhood due to mandatory OT. How is that safe? And broke my ankle last year. Surgery was 30k.
Honeywell HR, maybe you could publish some metrics. Who is paying the surcharge? Do you realize that we are bullied by coworkers about this?
Honeywell chooses the stick approach instead of the carrot.
Kind of dismissive to call it a "fatty tax". I know a couple employees who stopped smoking inn the past few years, partly due to this annual health test, and are the better for it. People with hypertension or borderline can get health advise, etc. to deal with it. And it's not just older folks even though some negative commenters have said that. The biometric screening has been beneficial for lots of people.....sad to see people being negative and dismissive about it here. If you don't want to get healthier fine, but don't look down on others for doing something to help themselves.
ITs a Fatty Tax...
Younger employees are more likely to have depression over their debt, as well as a much higher instance of STD's. Where and how is that tested?
People at greater risk for medical costs because of personal choices should shoulder more of the expense. This won't be a popular opinion, but you know the rules and how you play the game is up to you.
Motivating employees to get healthy is a good practice. It feels like more of a punishment though.
i false positive for nicotine about 50% of tests. My doctor and I have retested first three years running and it is never positive at the other lab in town. Sometimes quest has my numbers so far off it looks like I’m a teenager. Once they showed my waist size as 29.
So. Useless data grab.
I am glad to have medical coverage. Biometric testing results were motivating to me to make some changes over a couple years and get healthier. Yes, as one ages, exercise and diet become even more important to maintain health (metabolism tends to slow with age so you need to maintain muscle mass to burn calories). Several friends working for other employers have similar programs.
They just want to get rid of the older Americans because we cost them too much in salary and allegedly in healthcare. Personally I’ve never cost them a dime in 24 years. American workers are competing against all of the places honeywell has outsourced to which have socialized medicine and I don’t believe it’s costing Honeywell anything I could be wrong.
I refuse to give Honeywell my bodily fluids and get my healthcare elsewhere. Nothing good can come out of depending on Honeywell to help if I become sick.
- dfg is correct and there were lawsuits against Honeywell about it and Honeywell won. Many other companies also do the screening.
AMEN
Older employees are metabolically disadvantaged so the biometric screening discriminates against older employees.
Older employees are metabolically disadvantaged so the biometric screening discriminates against older employees.
We had a long discussion on this about two years ago, lengthy responses..
Honeywell insurance penalties BMI
2 years ago by Anonymous | 3062 views | no reactions | 14 replies (last 2 years ago)
Post ID: @REmG0lS