Annual physical exams for some or all employees may be a good idea for many reasons. But make sure your policy is clearly communicated to employees and meets legal requirements.
There are many legitimate reasons for requiring employees to have annual physical exams—for example, to ensure that individuals are physically capable of performing the required tasks of a particular job or to identify substance abusers.
There’s also a good reason for offering annual physicals on a voluntary basis. Wellness programs that promote employee health by offering annual physicals focus on prevention and help diagnose and treat health problems early before they become serious and costly.
Whether annual physicals are required or voluntary, you can encourage employees to have one by reducing or eliminating any copayment an employee would usually pay for a doctor’s visit. As long as such promotions are provided regardless of health status, they are not subject to the requirements of a “bona fide wellness program” under HIPAA.
Are your safety and health policies effective? Have you developed all the policies you need? If not, we have all the written and ready-to-use safety policies you’re likely to need in BLR’s Essential Safety Policies. Examine it at no cost and with no obligation to purchase. Get details here.
Points to Consider
- Policies pertaining to annual physical examinations should be distinguished from those dealing with preemployment physicals.
- A company whose welfare depends almost entirely on the leadership of a few key individuals should be concerned with heading off serious physical or emotional problems. Annual physicals are frequently required for high-level employees in whose health and well-being the company has a vested interest.
- Consider whether you want to adopt a policy that encourages all employees to get annual physicals as part of a wellness program, rather than just providing them for executives and other key employees.
- An annual physical may also be part of a drug-abuse prevention policy. This type of physical might consist only of a drug screen. If your annual physical is focused on drug use, then discuss how to coordinate these annual drug screens with your drug policy and whether to require all employees to be tested or only those in safety-sensitive positions.
- If your annual physical is geared to meet OSHA requirements, such as medical surveillance requirements, your focus needs to be on workplace safety, reducing hazards and workplace irritants such as noise, and compliance with recordkeeping standards.
- If you require an annual physical examination, and the physician instructs the individual to lose weight, exercise more, take specific medication, or other action, you need to consider what action you will take if the employee fails to do so. Will you require the employee to tell you about these instructions? Can you do so legally? Will you reprimand the employee? Will you reduce the opportunities for a bonus? Care must be taken so that any employment action is not unlawful discrimination or invasion of privacy.
- What are your specific goals? Are you simply providing another benefit to employees? Do you want to reduce absences among employees? Do you want to reduce healthcare costs? Do you want to reduce insurance costs? Depending on your goals, you may need to adopt other policies, such as reimbursement for wellness programs.
Get the safety policies you need without the work. They’re in BLR’s Essential Safety Policies program. Try it at no cost and no risk. Find out how.
Policies for Every Need
If you require annual physical examinations, it’s essential to have a written policy supporting your requirement. But where do you start? With BLR’s Essential Safety Policies, of course!This invaluable safety resource has a whole section on annual physical exams, including a list of points to consider (which we excerpted for today’s Advisor), issues to cover in your policy, and legal considerations.
Essential Safety Policies also provides you with sample policies that you can use “as is” or adapt to your organization’s particular needs and style. All the information you need to adapt one of the policies or draft your own is provided in each section.
Take these kinds of materials and multiply them by more than 2 dozen key safety topics, and you’ll know why Essential Safety Policies is such a valuable tool for busy safety professionals. These policies provide a ready-to-modify or use-as-is safety handbook for all your workers, with minimal effort on your part.
The policies are backed by a tutorial on policy writing and essential materials such as handbook receipts. A CD version is also available.
If your organization could benefit from supplementing (or perhaps having for the first time) a complete set of ready-to-use safety policies, we highly recommend a 30-day, no-cost, no-obligation, look at this program. Go here and we’ll be pleased to send it to you.
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Whether a worker is injured on or off the job, the result is often the same—lost workdays, lost productivity, and hefty healthcare costs. That makes getting all injured employees back to work ASAP a priority.
Whether a worker is injured on or off the job, the result is often the same—lost workdays, lost productivity, and hefty healthcare costs. That makes getting all injured employees back to work ASAP a priority.