As a healthcare provider, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina knows the impact of healthy behaviors.
And it’s why the organization chose to go above and beyond to model those behaviors for its members.
“Our vision is to create a culture of wellness where the healthy choice is the easy choice,” says Megan McCurdy, Associate Program Manager at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC). “We’re committed to our employees’ health and wellbeing. We take health seriously and promote a culture of wellness within our company.”
“That means helping our employees make healthy habits part of each day. We encourage healthy habits with walking trails, our employee gym, onsite weight management programs and available fresh produce deliveries for employees to take home. We also offer financial rewards to employees to encourage healthy lifestyles.”
Blue Cross NC’s employee population of 6,100 employees now have the opportunity to earn rewards through IncentFit, with a wellness benefits plan that includes incentives for gym visits, popular cardio activities, and Weight Watchers classes, as fun and competitive wellness challenges.
Altogether, employees can earn up to $500 per year for making healthy choices.
IncentFit is an important component of Blue Cross NC’s larger wellness program—TotalYou Rewards—designed to advance and support employees’ physical fitness, weight management, smoking cessation, stress reduction, and early detection of disease.
Integrated Health
Since 1933, Blue Cross NC has offered its customers high quality health insurance at a competitive price and has led the charge toward better health and more consumer-focused health care in the state. The nonprofit insurance company hosts major offices in Durham, Fayetteville, Winston-Salem, and Charlotte, and now serves more than 3.89 million customers.
When McCurdy first joined the company in 2014, she immediately recognized the internal culture of wellness. Just as the company sought to provide care to customers, it also wanted to improve the lives of its employees (many of them native North Carolinians.)
“When I first started, we had lots of niche programs and all of the registration was done on paper,” says McCurdy.
“We found IncentFit while originally just looking for a gym reimbursement program. We wanted to offer something to all of our employees, not just the ones in Raleigh who go to our on-site gym,” she explains. “But once we saw the capabilities, we realized this is a really good opportunity to create something even greater than the gym reimbursement program.”
After conducting an employee survey, the company decided to streamline all of its programs into one: TotalYou Rewards. “It’s sort of like a wellness fund, powered by IncentFit,” explains McCurdy.
It’s all part of a comprehensive approach, with products and services that work together to fulfill the needs of all the employees, not just a few, says McCurdy.
Moving Forward
The biggest change she’s seen in six years: technology and integration. No more old-school paper programs. Now wellness is complemented by technology, including fitness trackers and wearables to help the program run smoothly.
“We’re also way more integrated with the health plan now. We’re really focusing on drivers of health. Musculoskeletal is one of our top claims costs each year, so we’re really looking at what kind of data-driven programs we can implement to help improve that and lower those costs.”
After a year of running the program with IncentFit, she’s seen the culture of wellness grow stronger.
“The platform is very user friendly, it puts the responsibility on the employee to do their part. I see them getting their extra steps in,” she explains. “You get $2 every day that you take 10,000 steps. We’ve had really positive stories from employees, who work to take the extra few steps to go to the other building or take the stairs. It’s all very rewarding.”
