Employees show signs of health, receive payback
Healthy choices will pay off for active, benefit-eligible USU employees in the form of a $600 check near the end of this month, said USU President Stan Albrecht in an April 12 email to employees.
“We hope the wellness dividend, combined with central coverage of the increase in health insurance premiums, will be helpful for everyone, particularly in a year when across-the-board salary increases have not been funded by the state legislature,” Albrecht states in the email.
Albrecht said employees at USU-College of Eastern Utah will also receive the same dividend using their campus’ funds.
The employees who are actively working for the university, enrolled in USU’s health insurance as of July 1, 2010 and are eligible for benefits, will receive the one-time wellness dividend, said vice president for Business and Finance Dave Cowley. The university has approximately 2,500 employees who fit this category.
“We are able to do this because over the current fiscal year, USU’s self-insured health plan has experienced lower than expected claims,” Albrecht said in the e-mail.
Employee Wellness coordinator Caroline Shugart said she hopes people taking advantage of Wellness programs is connected with the decrease in health care costs at the university.
“I receive weekly e-mails from employees thanking the wellness staff for their help and encouragement, and telling me they are changing their health for the better,” she said.
Shugart said more and more employees are participating in Wellness programs each year. Visits to the Employee Wellness Center in the HPER building saw a 28 percent increase from 2009 to 2010, according to last year’s fourth-quarter Wellness Program dashboard update.
“We have an active wellness program,” Cowley said. “We think our employee wellness program is very effective in helping people be conscious about their own health and wellness and health care decisions. We believe it is making an impact.”
Cowley said preventive measures play a major part in keeping healthy. Last year the university extended its health plan to cover preventative procedures such as physicals, colonoscopies and mammograms completely.
“We encourage people to look after themselves and assess themselves so if they have those problems they can get them taken care of,” Cowley said.
Shugart gave an example another preventative measure: Diet and exercise. She said a person who gives up fast food and starts eating healthier food, and wears a pedometer to aim for 10,000 steps a day, can lose 25 pounds over five months.
“They get off their blood pressure medicine, they get off their cholesterol medicine,” she said. “They feel great. Their quality of life improves. The value (can be) at least $30,000 in health care costs, surgery hospitalization, medications.”
She said people who take preventative health and wellness measures feel better and live longer.
University employees also receive discounts at the Sports Academy and Smithfield Recereation Center. Dan Smith, Sports Academy general manager, said there are currently more than 800 active USU employee memberships, plus the family members of those employees, at the local fitness club.
To Shugart, it doesn’t matter where someone goes to exercise, as long as they are doing it.
“We want everyone active and doing 30 minutes of physical activity every day,” she said.
The exact date eligible employees will receive the dividend is not yet concrete.
Brande Faupell, Human Resources executive director, said the trick now is figuring out how to make it work. A special payroll has to be run in addition to regular payroll. The university is expecting to send out the dividend by the end of April.
– la.stewart@aggiemail.usu.edu