July 31, 2007
Bruce Nigro, Director
Essex County Division of Welfare
18 Rector Street , Floor 9
Newark , NJ , 07102
Step II Class Action Contractual Grievance
Wellness Courses
Article I. Purpose
Article VII. Discipline
Article XXV. Non-Discrimination
Human Resources Policies and Procedures
Americans with Disabilities Act
HIPAA, Title II
Dear Mr. Nigro:
CWA Local 1081 submits this Step II Contractual Grievance on behalf of our members who have Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield as their respective medical coverage providers through the County of Essex as their employer to protest the unwarranted, illegal and unsolicited delineation of their personal health information.
Attached, please find a letter of July 2, 2007 mailed to the abode of one of our Family Service Worker Union member's announcing that the company "developed the Horizon Health and Welfare Education Program". The letter further asserts that "Members are identified to participate in our Horizon Health and Wellness Education Program through our review of claims information, health risk assessment, submissions, physician or self-referral and/or other Horizon BCBSNJ management programs. You have been identified as someone who may benefit from the Diabetes Health Education Program".
Attached as well, please find a memorandum of July 18, 2007 from Essex County Office of Human Services Director Alan Abramowitz, written to "All Department Directors Statutory and Constitutional Officers," entitled "Needs Assessment-Wellness Courses" in which Mr. Abramowitz states "The office of Human Resources' Office of Occupational Health and Medicine is preparing a series of Wellness Courses to be offered to County employees. These courses will be held on site at various County facilities and will be scheduled during employee lunch periods. In order to determine which topics are of most interest to employees, the enclosed Needs Assessment form has been developed. Please have your Personnel Liaison copy and distribute this form to all employees within your Department and collect them when complete."
CWA Local 1081 harbors extreme umbrage with the manner in which the County of Essex and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield have concocted this Wellness Courses process and distributed its documentation:
- The Administrative Simplification provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA, Title II) required the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to establish national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health plans, and employers. It also addressed the security and privacy of health data.
- Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield's delineation of our affected members' specific physical maladies, such as diabetes, is an invasion of their privacy and violates the spirit, if not the law, of that which is HIPPA.
- Mr. Abramowitz's memorandum does not state that the distribution of the Needs Assessment form is limited to those who are covered by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, but rather directs that the form is to be copied and distributed "to all employees". Does that mean that the other health care providers with whom the County of Essex contracts to administer medical coverage for those employees of the County shall be participating in the Wellness Courses as well, or is Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield conducting the entirety of the County's Wellness Courses? Did the other health care vendors mail letters to their County employee "members" as well delineating the members' specific physical maladies as well?
- Mr. Abramowitz's memorandum does not state that it is voluntary that all employees of the County of Essex to complete and submit the Needs Assessment form.
- Those management operatives collecting the completed forms, and any other County employees handling them, will be privy to not only those "topics" contained within the Needs Assessment form but may also easily deduce or assume the physical conditions suffered by the employees completing the form based upon the three topics they have been directed to select. What, for example, if an employee selects such topics as "HIV/AIDS/STDs, Hepatitis B &C" and/or "Post HIV Exposure Prophylaxis"? Recently, you will please recall, one of our Family Service Worker members was plagued by the erroneous rumor they had contracted viral meningitis causing her embarrassment and to be shunned by some of her co-workers.
- CWA Local 1081, and we believe all of the Unions representing employees of the County of Essex , were not afforded the respect of being informed of the Wellness Courses. While our Union appreciates and supports the apparent sentiments that precipitated the plan to offer these courses (to have healthier, happier, more productive employees and reduce the County's costs of its self-insured health coverage provision), we believe had the County partnered with the Unions, or at least apprised the Labor organizations of the plan to offer the Wellness Courses, the implementation would have been better conceived, and executed, and our respective members might have been more inclined to participate.
- If you will please recall, CWA Local 1081 and the then Executive Director of the Newark YMCA met with the County's Risk Manager and the County Executive 's Chief of Staff to discuss such a wellness program with discounts offered to County employees choosing to join any one of the three YMCA's located within urban Essex County . Unfortunately, the County did not follow up on its promised part in exploring the feasibility and desirability of the YMCA/CWA Local 1081 proposal.
As the resolution to this grievance, CWA Local 1081 respectfully demands the following:
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The County will direct Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield to cease sending our affected members letters such as the one above described identifying our affected members' specific physical maladies, and shall provide the same directive to other County contracted health vendors acting similarly.
- The completion of the Needs Assessment form and the participation in the Wellness Courses shall be voluntary only.
- The County will take every measure to ensure the confidentiality of the topics selected by those of our Union's members.
CWA Local 1081 seeks a hearing, in this regard.
Sincerely,
David H. Weiner, President
CWA Local 1081
C: Lynn Buckley, CWA Representative
Stephen Weissman, Esquire
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