Team boosts attendance by promoting HRAs

Health Reimbursement Accounts reward service, enhance retirement benefits

MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2011 :: By Anjetta McQueen

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Management co-lead(s)

Terri L. Gee,Terri.L.Gee@kp.org

 

Union co-lead(s)

Christine Loquet, Christine.M.Loquet@kp.org

Chrystal Bushey, Chrystal.G.Bushey@kp.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional Resources

Your HRA is funded by Kaiser Permanente, based on your unused banked sick days when you retire. This animated tool and calculator lets you see how much those days could be worth. 

By using sick days conservatively, Danny Sweeney, RN, hopes to have a significant amount saved in his HRA when he retires.

Years ago, Danny Sweeney, an RN in Fontana, witnessed a former co-worker’s own hard lesson about retirement savings: “He received his money in a lump sum, and within a few years blew it all on bingo and the casinos.”

Now Sweeney, a 20-year Kaiser Permanente veteran working in the General and Plastic Surgery department, is banking his annual sick leave in a retirement nest egg—and helping the rest of his unit-based team spread the word about the Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) benefit.

A new way to use sick days

Sweeney’s team was working to improve attendance when members realized the HRA benefit can help employees think differently about how to use their annual sick leave days—and to think twice about calling in at the last minute, when replacements are difficult to find, says Christine Loquet, senior RN and the team’s labor co-lead.

Loquet and other team members assigned themselves to talk one on one to staff members about the HRA benefit, which allows employees to bank their unused annual sick leave days for post-retirement health care costs such as insurance premium co-pays, medical supplies and treatments. The team has steadily decreased the number of days staff in the department have called out sick.

The big sell, she says, was explaining that if they met certain requirements, their unused annual sick days could be cashed out each year or banked for their HRA—but that HRA reimbursements are tax free when they retire—a significant difference.

What is your sick time worth?

At a UBT meeting, the team used a tool on the LMP website, “Build your HRA nest egg,” to calculate sick leave contributions to retirement savings.

“Several members were surprised by how much money they could save for health needs in retirement,” says Loquet. “They could see how their decision to come to work could lead to significant savings for their future.”

To spread the word, the team also:

• Emailed a link to the online tool to the rest of the staff.
• Encouraged their colleagues to log on and try the HRA calculator.
• Distributed copies of “Your Guide to the Health Reimbursement Account” to help staff learn more about how the HRA works. 

The team also posted LMP fliers (Sick leave is like insurance and Never get sick? Don’t bet on it) in each section of the department’s two clinics.

Changing the culture

Although he is convinced of the benefit’s value, Sweeney says part of what’s needed is a culture change. Seniority rules often determine the priority of time-off requests, and it's widely acknowledged that employees with fewer years of service quickly learn a way around the rules: Instead of asking for time off they may not get, they keep silent and call in sick at the last minute on the day they want off.

“It’s tough for someone who’s been here five years to go up against someone who has 30,” Sweeney says.

By his calculations with the HRA tool, Sweeney could have as much as $80,000 saved if he continues his conservative use of sick days. (The value of the HRA depends on how much you earn, your years of service and the number of annual sick leave days you’ve banked.)

“I always preach, you may want to retire early, but will you be able to buy a health plan?” Sweeney says. “I am not working my whole life to be poor when I retire.”

Find out more about the HRA benefit.