Some employers search for incentives for staff vaccinations
Employees at Mays and Scnapp clinics, like this one at 55 Humphreys Center Drive, can receive a $100 bonus if they get vaccinated for COVID-19. (Daily Memphian file)
Two months after health care workers could be vaccinated, Mays and Schnapp Neurospine and Pain clinics has decided to offer $100 to employees who actually do it.
About 80% have. They get the cash just like any employee who gets on the bandwagon now and has paperwork to prove it.
Ultimately, Mays and Schnapp wants to be able to assure its patients that the staff is fully vaccinated and safe. It plans to promote that, with signs, perhaps, in the waiting room.
But it also wants to lead by example.
Friday, Feb. 12, a day after the incentive was announced, the buzz was palpable, said Eric Schnapp, CEO.
“It looks like it is already serving its purpose,” he said.
Mays and Schnapp’s main office is on the Baptist Memorial-Memphis campus. Employees go there to get their shots. .
About a third of the staff had turned in proof of their vaccines. Employees who had been waffling are now talking more positively, he said.
Eric Schnapp
Hundreds of other companies would like to offer their workers the same deal but have several issues.
First, there are not yet slots for thousands of schoolteachers, retail workers and the platoon of other frontline workers who have been at work every day of the pandemic.
Second, since 2017, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said employers could not offer incentives to employees, no matter how small, because paying them means their action is no longer voluntary.
“The EEOC put out a new proposal in January, saying you can only offer de minimis gifts to participate, like a water bottle with the company logo or something like that. Not a hundred bucks,” said Burch, Porter & Johnson labor law attorney Lisa Krupicka.
She is taking all kinds of calls now on vaccines and incentive issues.
“The most common are ‘Should we have policy where we fire employees if they don’t get shots,’ ” she said.
Alan Crone, Memphis attorney, says the buzz on incentives died down when the vaccine rollout turned bumpy.
“It’s hardly an issue until we get some vaccines. Right now, you couldn’t mandate anything,” he said.
As vaccine becomes more available, one of the most efficient ways to distribute it will be through workforce incentives, according to a letter sent Feb. 1 to the head of the EEOC, Charlotte Burrows, and signed by dozens of trade and employee groups.
“We are hopeful that COVID-19 vaccines will provide a pathway to safely restart the economy,” the letter says, “and we want to help facilitate and expedite the vaccination process.”
The groups want clarification from the EEOC to the extent they may offer employees incentives without running afoul of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
ADA says employers may not gather medical data on their employees for a perk, such as a company wellness program.
The legal uncertainty means many employers are concerned about liability and are reluctant to act.
Companies can get around the issue by having employees get shots down the street at a pharmacy or a doctor’s office because it saves them from having to collect the medical data required for the shot.
Even though it’s minimal information, like whether the recipient is allergic to eggs or has had previous allergic reactions, it is private information, Krupicka said.
What the big employers want, she said, is the ability to administer the shots on their premises, and in some cases, in their own retail pharmacies.
“But, ‘We don’t want to get sued,’” she said. “They’re saying, ‘This is so important. It’s a pandemic, a national health emergency; can’t you just issue some guidance, particularly about the COVID-19 vaccine, that would maybe take it out of these wellness regulations?”
Krupicka thinks it is possible. She says EEOC could allow the employers to silo the employee medical information away from HR records or simply toss out the regulation.
She also says that enough employee surveys have shown that $100 is the sweet spot for changing the minds of people ambivalent to the vaccine.
Hospitals and other employers who are now giving the shots on their premises are caught in the ambiguity of the EEOC proposal, which has not been finalized.
Baptist Memorial Health Care, which has immunized thousands of its workers but only about 55% of its total workforce, is not offering incentives.
On Feb. 5, The Kroger Co. announced it would give $100 to every associate who receives the full manufacturer-recommended doses.
It did not say the shots will be given in its pharmacies, and it made specific provisions for people who cannot get the vaccine for medical reasons or won’t for religious reasons.
To get the money, those people will have to complete a company-authorized health and safety course.
Kroger Delta spokeswoman Teresa Dickerson said employees do not have to get the shots at Kroger to earn the incentive.
“At this point, we do not have any vaccines so, we cannot provide any vaccines to anyone,” she said.
She could not respond to “hypothetical questions” about what Kroger would do if it had vaccine.
In January, Aldi and Trader Joe’s announced they were giving $100 bonuses to employees who received complete vaccinations.
“Because the proposal has not been finalized yet, we are in a kind of limbo,” Krupicka said, noting that there is reason to think the Biden administration, which has made a centerpiece of getting the nation vaccinated, may grant companies some wiggle room.
For now, she says, “it really just depends on your risk tolerance. The argument could be made, in the absence of any controlling precedent, ‘that I’m just going to do this and see what happens.’ ”
Mays and Schnapp want their employees vaccinated for several reasons, including the obvious safety factor. But new CDC guidance, issued Feb. 10, that says fully vaccinated people do not have to quarantine if they are exposed to a person with COVID also played into the decision.
“That’s huge,” Schnapp said. “Probably the biggest challenge all employers are facing is just staffing. With the rules of quarantining when you have COVID or exposure to someone with COVID, the hardest part is ensuring that we have staff to provide the level of care that our patients are used to receiving.
“If we have a staff member that needs to quarantine, first we do everything we can to allow them to work remotely,” he said.
“It can be taxing on other employees when you are manning a phone system and one of your fellow employees is not there that day, that’s more calls someone else needs to take.”
Offering the incentive could cost Mays and Schnapp about $6,000 for its 60 employees, which does not include cost of record-keeping.
Schnapp says it’s worth it.
“This is not just an investment in the individual employee, but our community itself, our entire practice.”
Topics
Mays and Schnapp Neurospine and Pain Porter & Johnson Alan Crone Kroger Co. Baptist Memorial Health CareJane Roberts
Jane Roberts has reported in Memphis for more than 20 years. As a senior member of The Daily Memphian staff, she was assigned to the medical beat during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also has done in-depth work on other medical issues facing our community, including shortages of specialists in local hospitals. She covered K-12 education here for years and later the region’s transportation sector, including Memphis International Airport and FedEx Corp.
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