Our company offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes personalized health care and wages that reflect the knowledge and experience required for a specific job. In all, CVS Caremark invested $8.4 billion in 2011 on wages and benefits for our colleagues.
Full-time colleagues, those working an average of 30 hours per week or more (23 hours per week in CA), are offered a full benefits package, which includes a 401(k) and an employee stock purchase plan; comprehensive medical, prescription, vision and dental coverage with contributions payable on a pre-tax basis; fertility and adoption benefits; life, accident and disability insurance; flexible spending accounts; paid time off; tuition reimbursement; and an employee discount at our stores, as well as access to many other employee discounts.
In 2011, our full-time medical benefits package was modified under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The plan now allows for coverage of dependents up to the age of 26, requires no co-pay for preventive doctor’s office visits and removed the lifetime maximum on coverage.
Our part-time colleagues are eligible for a limited benefits package that includes medical, hospital indemnity, dental, vision and life insurance that are paid for by the colleague on a pre-tax basis.
Making Healthy Choices
As we help our customers and patients become and stay healthy, we do the same for our colleagues through a variety of internal wellness programs and initiatives. Our emphasis on a healthy workplace has been repeatedly recognized by third-party organizations.
For example, in 2011, CVS Caremark once again received praise for its proactive approach to workplace health and its investment in programs that help colleagues and their families make better choices about their health and well-being. The Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Rhode Island gave the company an Exemplary Award – its highest honor – as part of the Worksite Health Awards, which recognize Rhode Island businesses working to promote worksite wellness.
Through our comprehensive wellness intranet portal and our signature WellRewards program, we have a history of success in helping colleagues improve their health in several key areas including smoking cessation, improved rates of mammograms and colon-cancer screenings, prenatal maternity care, physical activity and healthy eating.
Our strategy is twofold: encourage colleagues to be good consumers of health care and help them make healthier lifestyle choices. Colleagues are educated about making better decisions through a variety of resources, including a Care Advocate Team of dedicated nurses, decision support tools, self-directed DVD programs, a quarterly wellness newsletter, health assessments and disease management programs. These programs utilize several methods to help colleagues improve health behaviors, including seminars, coaching, incentives for community weight loss solutions, cafeteria “stop-bys,” online health improvement programs and exercise competitions.
Tens of thousands of CVS Caremark colleagues took advantage of the tools we made available to them in 2011. By engaging with their Care Advocate Teams, answering Health Risk Questionnaires and enrolling in targeted health initiatives, they found ways to increase their control over their own health.
In 2010 thousands of colleagues earned points for healthy lifestyle choices – such as obtaining a flu shot, completing preventive health screenings or participating in several newly introduced exercise challenges – and qualified for a $180 premium reduction on their 2011 health insurance through our award-winning WellRewards program.
In 2011 colleagues again participated in the program by taking their “Wellness Review.” That review process was expanded to include a biometrics screening component. Better By Numbers also granted colleagues points for finding out their cholesterol, BMI, blood pressure and blood sugar levels, which they could do at onsite locations, MinuteClinic or their primary care physician’s office. To kick off the Better By Numbers program, CVS Caremark President and CEO Larry Merlo personally encouraged every CVS Caremark colleague enrolled in the CVS Caremark medical plan to get a free health screening and “walked the walk” by receiving his 2011 screening at MinuteClinic.
Health screenings were not the only component of preventive care the company focused on. The company continued its emphasis on smoking cessation. Of note, 547 colleagues enrolled in the Healthy and Smokefree cessation program in 2011 and 254 of them quit. The initiative’s six-month validated quit rate is 52 percent.
New smoking cessation strategies were developed in 2011 which will be formally launched in 2012. First, CVS Caremark colleagues and family members will be able to earn $160 or more by participating in a new research study being conducted by the University of Pennsylvania. The Way to Quit study is designed to test new ways to help people stop smoking. Additionally, recognizing that tobacco use is a leading health risk, the company’s senior leadership finalized plans for CVS Caremark campuses to become tobacco-free by the end of 2013. On August 1, 2012, our Rhode Island corporate campuses will become the first to take this healthy step.
Destination: Healthy Baby!
In the area of neonatal health, our colleagues and their babies made very significant progress in 2011, through the Destination: Healthy Baby! program. This program is designed to lower the rate of pre-term births, the number of pregnancy-related hospital admissions and the length of admissions to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Expectant mothers are encouraged to enroll early in their pregnancies. The program provides them access to a personal maternity nurse, support for any special needs during pregnancy, customized maternity education materials and a parenting program for their first year as a parent.
In the third trimester, after completion of a Postpartum Depression Assessment, program participants receive additional materials including an Infant CPR Friends & Family Kit. In 2011, 40 percent of the colleagues covered by our health plans who became pregnant, and 100 percent of NICU admissions, enrolled in the program. As a result, the preterm birthrate for our enrolled colleagues was 10 percent, as compared with the national average of 12.7 percent. And the average length of hospital stay for NICU babies decreased 8.4 percent, down from 16.5 days in 2010 to 15.1 days in 2011, which is an overall reduction of 22 percent since the program began.
