As the nation’s largest pharmacy health care provider, CVS Health is committed to reinventing pharmacy to help people on their path to better health. This includes our 200,000 employees nationwide. To do this, we have implemented what we call a “Plan for Health.” The program’s goal is to help our employees be as healthy as they can be.

Our “Plan for Health” offers incentives, including a $600 reduction in paycheck contributions, for colleagues who undergo a free health screening and complete an online health assessment, each year. The program has already been successful, helping colleagues learn, some for the first time, that they have a chronic health condition that needs to be addressed or they have the risk of developing a chronic health condition.
We also incentivize our colleagues to strive for better health with our WellRewards employee wellness program.

The program, which is facilitated through WebMD, offers colleagues access to an online, confidential Wellness Review (health risk assessment), personalized health programs, and health challenges and trackers. The program is linked to our employee recognition program, Values in Action, and provides colleagues with the opportunity to earn points, which can be redeemed for rewards to spend on merchandise or gift cards on the Values in Action website by completing a variety of wellness activities or challenges.

In 2013, we introduced a high deductible health plan into our benefits offerings. We help offset the costs of these plans by contributing to an HSA for each employee enrolled. The company contributes different amounts to HSAs depending on the base salary of each employee. We contribute a greater amount to lower-earning colleagues to help make health care costs more affordable. We also encourage colleagues to contribute their own money to their HSA, which offers several tax advantages and allows 100 percent of funds to be rolled over year after year. In 2014, we moved the majority of our colleagues into high deductible health plans.

Additionally, CVS Health also provides free wellness services, such as screenings, flu shots and smoking cessation counseling, at our MinuteClinic locations. These services are available to all of our colleagues, regardless of whether they enroll in company-sponsored health plans. We also developed a program called the “Path to Healthy Nutrition,” which revised the menus and prices in our cafeterias with a focus on healthy selections and portions. As part of the implementation of that program, we hired a dietician who travels throughout the country making sure that all of our cafes are following the menu guidelines.

CVS Health made headlines in early 2014 with our announcement to discontinue tobacco sales in all of our retail locations in the United States. Prior to this, we had been helping our employees quit smoking for some time. By the end of 2013, more than 848 of our colleagues had enrolled in a smoking cessation program, and more than 764 confirmed they quit smoking.