There’s good news for employees enrolling in the UA Choice health plan this year. Employees and their spouses or Financially Interdependent Partners are eligible to earn a $600 rebate each—up to $1,200—just for participating in the Healthyroads wellness program. Employees must act before June 30 to earn the wellness rebate.

There’s more good news. Savings from the FY14 plan year have been applied to the rates for the new plan year. For some employees, this will lead to reduced costs even before the rebate is applied. (READ MORE ABOUT FY15 OPEN ENROLLMENT HERE)

To earn the rebate, eligible employees and/or their spouses or FIPs, need to log in to Healthyroads and complete a Personal Health Assessment. Employees should use the single-sign on link on the benefits web page at www.alaska.edu/benefits . Spouses and FIPs (including employees who have waived coverage but are on their spouse’s UA Choice plan), should go directly to Healthyroads.com to sign up. In addition, a biometric screening must be entered by June 30, 2014. While it is not required that both partners participate, it’s worth an extra $600 savings if they do—a total savings of $1,200 a year! �

UA has signed an agreement with Quest Diagnostics to conduct biometric screenings for plan members. There are three options to report your biometrics:

1. If you have had a screening since July 2013, or plan to go to a physician for a wellness visit prior to June 30, you can use the Health Care Provider Form. (HERE) Your physician will need to submit the completed form to Healthroads.
2. You can schedule a screening at a Quest Patient Service Center (PSC) at My.BlueprintForWellness.com, and use the registration key of UOAremote. Follow the prompts to register and schedule your screening.
3. The UA benefits office will be scheduling on-site screenings, starting at rural campus locations beginning in May. A schedule of screenings will be announced once finalized.

Please note that only the contracted vendor or a physician can submit biometric information to Healthyroads. Even if you happen to know your blood pressure, lipid panel, BMI (body mass index) and waist circumference and glucose/blood sugar levels, you cannot self-enter those numbers to the site.

Your biometric results will automatically populate your Personal Health Assessment. Those numbers, in addition to the information you provide during the interactive online assessment, is used to generate a customized wellness plan. Your personal biometric information will never be disclosed to the university. Healthyroads will prepare aggregate reports for UA with statistics on the number of plan members in various risk categories, but all personal health data is protected by federal privacy laws, and the results of your screenings and health risk assessments will never be shared.

To allow time for processing and data entry, the rebate will be applied to all plans through R17—the paycheck received August 22, 2014. After that, only those enrollees who submitted the biometrics and personal health assessment prior to the June 30 deadline will continue to see the rebate applied to their payroll contributions. New hires after June 1 will have 90 days to complete the wellness incentive and earn the rebate.

For more information please read the Wellness FAQ HERE.

Download a wellness incentive flier from Healthyroads HERE.