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Quest Diagnostics Elevates Employee Well-Being With Relaunched HealthyQuest Program, Holistic Support Initiatives, and High Engagement in 2023

DGX | September 20, 2024

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / September 20, 2024 / Quest Diagnostics:

Originally published in Quest Diagnostics' 2023 Corporate Responsibility Report

We conducted a comprehensive benefits survey to better understand what our employees are looking for and determine how we can better meet their needs. In 2023, we implemented new initiatives and enhanced existing ones to address the physical and financial well-being topics our employees identified.

Fertility and family-building benefits

As of January 2024, we offer fertility and family-building benefits in collaboration with Kindbody for employees enrolled in qualified, Quest-sponsored medical plans. Employees and their spouses or domestic partners can receive up to $10,000 in lifetime benefits for treatments and services that include in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination.

Salary-tiered medical plan contributions

As healthcare costs continue to rise, we reevaluated the way we collect employee contributions toward Quest medical plans. We introduced salary-tiered contributions, allowing employees who earn less to pay less.

Employee Relief Fund

We continued to refine our Employee Relief Fund to better support our employees facing a personal crisis or a federally declared emergency. Quest employees contribute to the Fund, with Quest matching their donations dollar for dollar. Together, Quest and employees raised over $200,000 by the end of 2023.

Financial wellness tools

Quest employees can now access unlimited, confidential, personal financial coaching through FinFit at no cost. Financial coaches can guide employees through a range of topics from credit scores to budgeting. Employees can receive loans or credit through FinFit to cover emergency expenses and set up easy repayment via their paychecks. We also provide ongoing financial education workshops.

HEALTHYQUEST

Our people are the backbone of everything we do at Quest. When our people thrive, our company does, too. In 2023, we relaunched our HealthyQuest program to offer holistic support for our employees' well-being. We developed a new framework-How I… Work, Eat, Feel, and Move-to meet employees where they are on their health journey, and to make healthy choices more approachable and accessible. To support the HealthyQuest framework, we focus on 3 key areas: culture, prevention, and programs.

Culture

Our HealthyQuest EBN launched in May of 2023 with a mission to encourage, educate, and empower employees' physical and mental well-being. Over 1,000 employees have joined this community thus far. Additional structure and leadership are provided by a Steering Committee of engaged C-suite leaders and directors, a Health and Wellness Advisory Council of medical experts, and HealthyQuest Ambassadors who deploy initiatives across the enterprise. Together, these teams are fostering peer-to-peer encouragement, creating medically sound programming and activities, and building a wellness infrastructure to support a health-centric company culture.

Prevention

Every day, we help our customers improve their health by providing them with high-quality diagnostic testing insights. Through our prevention pillar, we do the same for our employees and their families. Our cornerstone program is our Blueprint for Wellness screening. This enables employees and their spouses or domestic partners to receive an annual, personalized health report based on comprehensive lab panels, biometrics, and online questionnaire. The report identifies health risks for participants and provides a multi-year view of their metrics.

In 2023, ~37,000 Quest employees and their spouses or domestic partners participated in Blueprint for Wellness, representing a ~79% participation rate among those enrolled in a Quest-sponsored medical plan. We held on-site events, offered home test kits, and facilitated testing at our patient service centers to meet our employees and their spouses or domestic partners where they are. We also provided 3 months of no-cost virtual telemedicine support through Quest Virtual Care following the screening so participants could speak with a physician about any risks identified in their report.

Blueprint for Wellness has been life-changing for many Quest employees. Whether the report helped them uncover a health issue they were unaware of or motivated them to make changes to help prevent something more serious, they now have a roadmap toward a healthier life.

Another annual prevention initiative we offer to our employees and their spouse or domestic partner who are 45 years and older is a no-cost InSure® ONE™ test that can lead to early colorectal cancer detection. When physicians catch colorectal cancer in the early stages, patients have a 5-year survival rate of over 90%.* In 2023, ~27% of eligible employees participated in InSure® ONE™ testing.

Programs

We invest in programs that address our employees' need for support across all aspects of well-being. In 2023, we continued to work with Spring Health to provide all employees and their dependents enrolled in a Quest-sponsored medical plan with high-quality, affordable mental health support. Employees can receive up to 6 therapy sessions per year at no cost, as well as coaching and medication management based on their needs. In 2023, ~21% of eligible Quest employees took advantage of this benefit.

In addition to these services, we hosted our first "Go Well" wellness challenge in 2023. Over the 6-week period, over 7,000 employees logged healthy actions like taking a walk, getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep, journaling, and more. The initiative helped employees feel prepared prior to participating in our Blueprint for Wellness screening.

To support qualified employees and their spouses or domestic partners in acting on Blueprint for Wellness insights, we also offer personalized weight management and type 2 diabetes coaching through Pack Health®, our personalized health management affiliate acquired in 2022.

"Blueprint for Wellness not only added healthy years to my life, but to my daughters' and mother's lives, who are also carriers of this gene."

-GINA, A QUEST EMPLOYEE WHOSE BLUEPRINT FOR WELLNESS TESTING REVEALED A HEREDITARY CONDITION