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January 2012 Newsletter
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| Download a PDF copy |
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Click here to download a PDF copy of the January 2012 newsletter, print it (double-sided please) and take it home to share with your family.
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| Board extends date for health assessment in HEM |
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The Benefit Board has extended the date to March 15 for participants in the Health Engagement Model (HEM) program to complete their confidential online health assessment.
Moving the date up to mid-March gives members an additional month to register for their plan’s online system and become familiar with links to health assessments and e-lessons. The date for completing e-lessons remains July 15.
About 85 percent of members have elected to participate in the HEM program. In the first three weeks of the program, about 20 percent of them already completed their assessment.
PEBB will send reminder e-mails to all PEBB members beginning mid-February. HEM participants who have and haven’t completed their assessment will get these e-mails, as will non-participants.
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| Health plans post helpful videos on health assessments |
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Providence and Kaiser have posted videos online that guide HEM participants to register, log in and complete their health assessments and e-lessons. The visuals and narration help members get familiar and comfortable with their plans’ protected websites.
Click here for the Providence video.
Click here for the Kaiser video.
Members who signed up for the HEM program also received a HEM brochure guide from their plan with the benefits summary PEBB sent in December.
Click here for the Kaiser brochure.
Click here for the Providence brochure.
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| Tips for locating health assessments and e-lessons online |
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Your health plan’s HEM brochure walks you through their protected websites to locate their health assessments and e-lessons. Here are links to the brochures, which include links to the plan websites:
Click here for the Kaiser brochure.
Click here for the Providence brochure.
Here are some additional tips.
Providence calls its assessment “Personal Health Assessment.” If you registered successfully at the Providence site, you’ll see “Welcome PEBB Member” at the top and “Personal Health Assessment” on the left. If you don’t see these call outs, you may have re-registered and entered the site as a guest. Call the myProvidence help desk for assistance: 877-569-7768.
“Succeed” is the brand name for Kaiser’s “Total Health Assessment." After registering as a Kaiser member, click through the prompts to Total Health
Assessment or Succeed.
In the HEM program e-lessons are electronic health education lessons. Participants take two e-lessons by July 15. On their websites, Providence calls them “Health Conversations” and Kaiser terms them “Coaching Sessions” and “Healthy Lifestyle Programs.”
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| Q: How private is the information in my health assessment? |
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A: Your individual information and results of your assessment are completely private unless you decide to share them. PEBB health plans are committed to the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information, defined as Protected Health Information (PHI). This includes your responses to the health-related questions in the health assessment. The plans follow all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act(HIPAA) privacy rules.
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| Read Kaiser’s privacy statement at http://kp.org/privacy or go to http://kp.org and click on Privacy Practices at the bottom of the page. To read Providence’s privacy statement go to www.myprovidence.org and click on Notice of Privacy Practices at the bottom of the page |
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| No wait for Weight Watchers |
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Members, spouses and domestic partners covered in PEBB health plans no longer have to do a health assessment to sign up for no-cost Weight Watchers®.
You can enroll in the program simply by calling Weight Watchers as soon as you’re ready to join.
Click here for the Weight Watchers brochure with contact information.
Still, taking the assessment to have access to no-cost Weight Watchers was no big deal says Daryl Kottek, who works at the State Data Center.
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“It was so non-eventful that the only thing I remember is it asked for my cholesterol levels, which I didn’t know, and it was OK that I didn’t know.” He adds that processing the assessment to register Weight Watchers took less time than he anticipated.
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| Quit for life - and dollars |
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Members who use tobacco have an additional incentive to quit – an end to their monthly tobacco use deduction.
Breathing better, more vitality, saving money – whatever your motivation for quitting, help is at hand through Quit for Life®, the tobacco cessation support program covered in your health benefits.
Phone coaches include former tobacco users who know the territory and can help you design a personal quit plan. The program also covers nicotine replacement therapy (patch and gum), along with certain prescribed medications to help you quit.
Quit the addiction and quit the deduction. It’s a lifesaving, money-saving combination.
Call Quit4Life at 1.866.QUIT.4.LIFE (1-866-784-8454). Or you can sign up online by clicking here. Click here for PEBB’s tobacco-use midyear change form.
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| What do you know about back pain? |
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Think you know all there is to know about care for your lower back?
Think again!
Click here to take the Get Vertical quiz and put your knowledge to the test.
You could win one of 50 pedometers just for playing!
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This fun e-lesson is part of a new campaign launched as part of the Oregon Health Care Quality Corporation’s Partner for Quality Care initiative. The campaign is educating people with low back pain on how to get the right care when they need it, while staying active and avoiding unnecessary care that doesn’t improve their health.
The campaign is based on recently released clinical guidelines on evaluating and managing low back pain.
Imaging tests don’t give doctors much information that’s useful for diagnosis or treatment for people with the most common type of low back pain; yet 2010 data show at least 26 percent of Oregonians who received care for a new episode of simple low back pain received an imaging test.
And even though a non-prescription pain reliever is the best choice if medication is needed for low back pain, approximately 15 percent of these people filled prescriptions for narcotic pain relievers within 90 days.
Click here and scroll to the bottom of the page for the guidelines, a consumer booklet and more resources.
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