Friday, June 20, 2014
Business
Another payoff in eating well
ZACK WITTMAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
Laura Smith welcomed the added incentive to shop healthily.
Harvard Pilgrim
offers cash rewards
By Priyanka Dayal McCluskey
Globe Staff
W
hen Laura Smith grocery
shops, it is almost as if someone is watching her. And
there is some truth to that.
Making a bad choice — say, potato
chips or other fatty snacks — will be reported as points against her. But if she
buys healthy foods, like fresh produce and
whole grains, she gains points. This is all
automatically tallied at the register as her
food is scanned.
It’s not that someone is spying, unbidden, on Smith. She has willingly joined an
employer-sponsored program that pays
her $20 a month to shop healthily — “an
incentive to continue doing what I want to
do in the first place,” she says.
Eventually, more than 1 million people
across New England may have the same
option.
The cash incentives are a new perk that
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care launched
for its 1,200 workers in April and plans to
introduce to employer health plans later
this year.
The company, which insures 1.2 million
people through 20,000 employers, will be
the first insurer in the state and among
the first in the country to offer a benefit
that links cash rewards with healthy grocery shopping.
“We believe health insurance can be
used as a proactive and supportive tool
to change culture, to change behavior,”
said Eric Schultz, Harvard Pilgrim’s chief
executive.
Newton wellness firm NutriSavings
runs the program for Harvard Pilgrim
and developed a scoring system that ranks
foods based on their nutritional value, on
a 100-point scale. Foods rich in nutrients
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like fiber, protein, vitamins, and minerals
get high scores; those loaded with fat, sugar, sodium, and saturated fats score low.
All fresh fruits and vegetables are good
for the top score, 100 points. Sodium-packed
hot dogs and sugary sodas are among the
worst offenders — 0 points, or close to it.
Participants’ scores are calculated by
taking an average of their monthly grocery
purchases. Harvard Pilgrim employees get
$10 a month for enrolling in the program,
and another $10 if their monthly score is
60 or higher.
The program doesn’t rely on the honor system; grocery purchases are tracked
electronically when participants scan
loyalty cards at the checkout counters at
Shaw’s, Stop & Shop, Roche Bros., Hannaford Bros. Co., or Wegmans stores.
More than one-third of Harvard Pilgrim’s employees are participating, and
more than 65 percent of their shopping
trips have scored high enough to get the
cash rewards.
The initiative is an expansion of socalled wellness programs that employers around the country are adopting as a
strategy to control health care costs.
Weight Watchers meetings, group
workouts, and health screenings are offered with the idea that health insurance,
absenteeism, and other costs will decline
if employees are healthier.
A 2010 Harvard analysis found that
medical costs fall $3.27 for every dollar
spent on workplace wellness programs.
Such programs have allowed John Hancock
Financial to keep its employee health plan
premium increases 1 to 3 percentage points
lower than the overall market, according to
spokeswoman Melissa Simon Berczuk.
Storage company Iron Mountain Inc.
is expecting premiums to stay flat in 2015
thanks to its wellness efforts, said Scott
Kirschner, director of benefits strategy.
“The employers I speak to about this are
very confident the time and money they
put into their wellness programs are worth
it,” said Kristen Lepore, vice president of
government affairs for the employer group
Associated Industries of Massachusetts.
Many companies offer incentives to encourage healthy behaviors — for example,
by discounting gym memberships. For
Harvard Pilgrim, offering cash rewards for
healthy eating was a logical next step.
Schultz is among the participants. He
admits that his regular grocery purchases
include Cap’n Crunch cereal and pudding,
which have dragged his overall score to
below the 60-point threshhold. “These
are items that I never used to think twice
about putting in the grocery cart, but now
I’m trying to bring up that score,” he said.
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ZACK WITTMAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
Fresh fruits and vegetables piled up in a grocery basket in Laura Smith’s apartment.
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Healthy
food score
This scoring system ranks
foods based on several different
nutrients. Healthy foods score
higher. Harvard Pilgrim uses the
system to give its employees
rewards for buying healthy foods.
An average score of 60 or
above is good for $20 a
month.
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Sometimes a small tweak — like switching to a less salty pasta sauce — is enough
to push up the score, said Scott Miller, a father of three teenagers who does the shopping for his family and, so far, has been
buying food healthy enough to earn the
$20 monthly reward.
“I try to look at the labels when I can,
but it’s really difficult to track,” said Miller,
a market researcher at Harvard Pilgrim. “I
walk out of there with two carts full a lot
of the time.”
The cash is a welcome motivator for
Smith, a program specialist at the Harvard
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CHIQUI ESTEBAN/GLOBE STAFF
Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, the insurer’s charitable arm, who has been extra
vigilant in eating healthy as she prepares
to give birth to her first child at the end of
June. Smith decided to save her rewards
for something special.
“When we have our baby,” she said,
“we’ll have some extra funds that we can
put towards something like a vacation or
a Disney trip.”
PRINTED COPY FOR PERSONAL READING ONLY.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION.
Priyanka Dayal McCluskey can be reached
at [email protected]. Follow
her on Twitter @priyanka_dayal.
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