Once a year my company offers health screenings -- free -- and an incentive (such as a gift card) for taking the health screening. I think it's a great idea for companies to do this because there are plenty of stories about people who don't go to the doctor enough and then go through a health screening at work and discover that they have diabetes or high cholesterol or that they're this close to having a heart attack.

That's great. But I don't participate mainly because I already know what's going on with me. I see my OB once a year, I see my primary once a year, and I see my endo every three months complete with blood work. There is nothing that a health screening can tell me that I don't already know. In fact, it would likely do nothing more than piss me off because someone with little knowledge of diabetes would be telling me that I test too much or questioning the validity of a CGM.

Anyway. I'm fine with not getting the incentive for participating. But I wrote a story today about companies that are starting to think about penalizing employees for unhealthy behaviors (vs. simply rewarding for good behavior). I've seen things like this before: health insurance penalty for people who smoke. But now companies are starting to consider penalizing people for things like having a BMI that's considered unhealthy.

I just wonder how far this will go. Will I be penalized for having an A1C over 7% despite my best efforts to keep my blood sugar in control? What are the far-reaching implications for people with chronic illnesses who don't have control over what happens to them.

I 100% understand where companies are coming from when they make these policies; health insurance costs are rising fast and as businesses they are trying to keep costs in line, especially during a recession.

But at what cost to the employee?