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A federal agency on Monday released final rules on how employers can offer workers financial incentives of up to 30 percent of the cost of their cheapest health insurance plans to participate in wellness programs without violating federal laws protecting the confidentiality of medical information. The move from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission aims to clear up confusion over the way two federal laws protecting employees' medical privacy apply to the popular programs, which are designed to control medical spending by reducing obesity, smoking and other risk factors. (Wiessner, 5/16)

The final rules go into effect in 2017, and apply to all workplace wellness programs, including those that aren’t tied to an employer’s health insurance program, the EEOC said. [Brian] Marcotte of the National Business Group on Health said that the finalized rules vary little from rules the EEOC proposed last year, so they won’t radically change how most companies administer their health programs. “It’s business as usual for most employers,” he says. (Silverman, 5/16)

[Consumer] and disability-rights advocates, who had sought broad changes when the draft rules were unveiled last year, were clearly disappointed. The regulations don’t provide enough privacy protections, they said, and the programs can’t be considered voluntary with the level of incentives and penalties that were approved by the EEOC. “This could coerce employees into providing information that they would otherwise not provide about their health,” said Sarah Fleisch Fink, senior policy counsel with the National Partnership on Women & Families, which was among dozens of groups that wrote comment letters seeking changes in the draft rule. (Appleby, 5/17)