I was on a sales call about a new HR system that my company is looking at implementing. There is data reporting directly from our health insurance provider to show employees the best plan, based on historical data. That seems pretty great right? It would make finding a plan easier and potentially reduce the cost of an employees benefits.
Then on the next slide they showed off a list of about 15 high-cost conditions. Think depressions, diabetes, asthma, etc. The HR team can track how many employees have those conditions and if they are in compliance. Compliance means, refilling prescriptions, going to follow up appointments etc. On the aggregate that makes sense. Then, for super users(admin) they can even see the specific employees with those conditions. WTF? This is a common big name system, and I had no idea that the HR team had access to that level of data for anyone with company subsidized insurance. This is in the US. I have no clue how that would not violate HIPPA, but I am not a lawyer.
I know it is nearly impossible to prove that those high-cost conditions would lead to layoffs or firing directly. But the fact that it could be looked at, and shared offline is concerning. This is one more reason we need to move to a single payer system.