I once worked for a major company who had a nursing number we had to call before calling our doctor or going to the hospital or we'd be penalized.

The deal was that when we weren't feeling well, we had to call the nurse hot-line provided by my employer and they would walk us through what to do. One of my former co-workers was having chest pain and went right to the ER without first calling the nurse hot-line. She got slammed with medical bills because she didn't get approval from the nurses on call first.

I absolutely hated having to call nurses as dictated by my company. I know that there are HIPAA laws, but I'm a skeptic, and my former company paying a nursing staff to look after their employees sent up a big red flag. Something didn't feel right and I was convinced it was my company's way of keeping dibs on the health of their employees, which frankly, is nobody's business.

In an effort to combat huge health care costs, big companies, like the one I used to work for, are paying other big companies to collect and crunch employee data to identify which of their employees might get sick.

Here's an example- the company is looking for employees who are at risk for things such as diabetes and then they target those people with personalized emails, suggesting they visit a doctor or start a weight-loss program.

I don't know about you, but I don't think my personal health is anyone's business. Now, if it were related to an accident in the workplace, that's something completely different.

How does it make you feel to know your company might be interjecting themselves into your personal health?

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