Article: Companies use incentives to get workers healthier.(Front)

By Elizabeth Simpson

The Virginian-Pilot

Nudging employees to be healthy used to mean kicking in a gym discount or a free flu shot every year.

Now, though, companies are starting to push harder by linking their workers' health habits to their pocketbooks.

Some, for instance, will pay a larger share of their insurance premiums if workers agree to a free health assessment and keep their cholesterol in check, or a smaller share if they smoke or exceed their ideal body fat levels.

These can be called incentives to be healthy - or, for the glass-is-half-empty types, penalties for being unhealthy.

Such initiatives are on ...

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