There's so much to know about the many different laws and regulations surrounding worksite wellness programs. To help us work through the many nuances of the laws, I brought on Attorney Barbara Zabawa, owner of the Center for Health & Wellness Law, LLC.
You almost have to sit down with a pen and paper for this podcast because there's a lot of caveats and scenarios that you'll need to consider, especially if you are collecting health information (think Health Assessment and biometrics), offering an outcomes based program or offering incentives.
I start off asking some pretty basic questions to set the groundwork for the conversation. Barbara starts off explaining that the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) is the federal agency that enforces the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).
Barbara then breaks down the EEOC's final wellness rules in May 2016, what an employer should consider when collecting health info, the first question employers should ask when designing a wellness program and the tobacco penalty limit.