GiftCard Partners Blog

The American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) has designated the week of March 11-17th, 2012 as THE week to recognize HR professionals in hospitals and non-hospital organizations across the US. These professionals deal with difficult issues day in and day out, and they are the backbone of the healthcare workforce. If you are an HR professional in the healthcare industry, lead the way and reward your colleagues with the gift they can use, like
CVS and CVS Select^TM gift cards. It’s the employee gift that goes a long way to help with everyday family healthcare costs.
Learn more about Healthcare HR Week!

There are many 3rd party companies that define, administer and track customer loyalty programs as a service, but there are also many companies that successfully run their own loyalty program in-house. Incentive and loyalty points platforms are utilized to create and maintain customer accrued points, and they include the redemption platform which is loaded with the rewards. These systems also integrate features like social media, communications tools, survey systems, and special online promotion tools. What do internally-run or independently-run loyalty programs look like? They look much like the ones that loyalty program providers run, and they often include a portfolio of gift cards to choose from when redeeming loyalty points.  Each program has its own attributes for accruing points, some examples are: *    Simply, dollar to point system *    Promotions like spend X and get double points *    Member discounts *    Retailer partnering, like fuel discounts *    Additional points for online purchases Companies that run their own loyalty programs should be sure there are flexible rewards, like gift cards and
bulk gift card buyers receive % discounts based on the spend for cards purchased. These programs are an integral piece of a loyalty strategy and they work to help acquire, retain, and reward customers via the accumulation of points. Do you run an internal loyalty program? Tell us about it here.

U.S. Workers are spending $3,000
¹ a year on WHAT? The answer might be shocking to some…coffee and lunch. Sadly, I’m not shocked.  For years, I spent lunches at Boston’s Newbury and Boylston Street eateries in addition to daily trips for my (former) favorite chai tea latte. Those were the days…of draining my cash!!

GiftCard Partners continues its path of helping employers understand why now is the time to include a health and wellness program with incentives. GCP was published in this February’s issue of Voluntary Benefits Magazine, outlining the top 5 reasons why and how to start such a program! Inside the article, you'll find: 1. Employers Can Shape a Healthier Workforce 2. What to Expect from your Health and Wellness Program 3. How to Overcome Participation Obstacles 4. How to Measure Results 5. The Thing Most Companies Don’t Get Right I'd like to extend a special
Thank You to Denise Holland, President of
Inside Employee Wellness & Consulting for her contributions to this article. Check out:
GCP’s, Start a Health and Wellness Program in 2012

Most people in corporate America understand the benefits of health and wellness programs…from the potential insurance premium savings and government incentives to companies, to individual employee productivity increases, and long term behavior changes; health and wellness programs seem to be a win-win when you incent and motivate people to get involved. But, it’s not just the corporate side of America looking closely at health and wellness incentives. U.S. Medicaid and Medicare programs, States and insurance companies are also looking at incentives such as the
CVS Select gift cards. Such gift cards work as incentives in prevention programs that demonstrate changes in health risk and outcomes, such as tobacco cessation, controlling or reducing weight, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, and avoiding the onset of diabetes or improving the management of their diabetes condition.1 CVS Select gift cards is an example of a healthy gift card incentive that filters out unhealthy products, such as tobacco and alcohol, and supports positive purchases such as medication co-pays, over the counter medicines and other healthcare products. In many ways, the users of Medicaid and Medicare programs are some of the most vulnerable of our population, as they need prompting to get healthy and remain healthy, yet they often have fewer resources to do so.
Read more from CMS.gov to learn how incentives can benefit Medicare & Medicaid Services. Source: 1.
Overview of Medicaid Incentives for Prevention of Chronic Diseases Program