Posts By: David Zanze

Understanding the Drivers of Corporate Health and Wellness

A perfect balance of health and wellness. Does it exist? To a small few, it does—but for a majority of people, finding that balance can prove extremely challenging. That’s when things can start taking a toll on employees’ mental and physical health, and the negative effects can spill into their work performance and eventually their employers’ bottom lines. “The Great Resignation”…

Understanding the Drivers of Corporate Health and Wellness

A perfect balance of health and well-being. Does it exist? To a small few, it does—but for a majority of people, finding that balance can prove extremely challenging. That’s when things can start taking a toll on employees’ mental and physical health, and the negative effects can spill into their work performance and eventually their ...

Anthem’s Data Breached; WGAT Takes Security Steps to Protect Members

Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT) was informed today by Anthem, Inc., the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross of California, that it was the unfortunate victim of a highly-sophisticated cyber-attack.  As a result of this attack, Anthem’s secure data was criminally accessed and sensitive, personal information about its customers may have been compromised. At this ...

WGAT and Pinnacle Host Cedar Health Open Houses

Last month, Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT) and Pinnacle Claims Management, Inc (PCMI) cohosted successful open houses for our three Cedar Health and Wellness Centers in Salinas, Watsonville and Santa Maria. The open houses were an opportunity for WGAT and PCMI to showcase the centers as a convenient, lower-cost healthcare option for employers and employees ...

COVID-19 Vaccination Phases

Dear Valued Members: While the country is still in the early phases of distributing the COVID-19 vaccine, we want to keep you informed of what we are doing as an organization to prepare. As you are aware, the COVID-19 vaccine will have limited availability at first due to limited supplies. The Centers for Disease Prevention ...

Verification of Employment in Critical Infrastructure Industry Template

This template can be used to provide your employees with proof of employment in the food and agriculture industry for verification of Phase 1B vaccine eligibility. Replace all sections highlighted in yellow with the appropriate information. Download the Verification of Employment in Critical Infrastructure Industry Template here.

Rapid COVID-19 Testing Now Available

Pinnacle Claims Management, part of the Western Growers Family of Companies (WGFC), is now offering rapid COVID-19 testing at employer locations as well as our Cedar Clinic Health and Wellness Centers in Oxnard, Santa Maria, Salinas, and Watsonville. Pinnacle has obtained approval by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Act (CLIA) to provide COVID-19 testing. Our diagnostic ...

Pinnacle Claims Management, Inc. Expands Services to Include Health Care Delivery

IRVINE, Calif. (June 8, 2021) – Pinnacle Claims Management, Inc., part of the Western Growers Family of Companies (WGFC), has announced it will facilitate patient care as a managing services organization at the Cedar Health and Wellness Center located in Oxnard, California. This continued venture in the health care delivery of Pinnacle further enhances its patient-centered ...

Caring for Employees: A Health Plan Is Indicative of a Company’s Culture

If it’s time for you to make changes to your current benefits plan or implement a new plan altogether, there is a lot to consider.  Provider networks, employee contributions and a prescription benefits program are just a few decisions you need to make. These components are usually straightforward and relatively simple to compare among the ...

Navigating Through Another Transition in Health Insurance Reform

By David Zanze With upcoming changes to health insurance reform in development by the Trump Administration, Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT) is prepared once again to roll with the changes and look for solutions that benefit our members. Since 1957, we have been offering health coverage to employers in the agriculture community and during that ...

Corporate Health and Wellness Centers – A Viable Option to Saving On Health Care Costs

Sixty years ago, Western Growers Association launched the agriculture industry’s first program allowing agribusinesses to easily offer health plans to their employees: the Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT). Today, WGAT is the largest provider of health benefits for the agricultural industry specializing in highly customizable benefit plans to meet the diverse needs of owners, managers,…

Telemedicine Gives Agricultural Workers Easier Access to HealthCare

While telemedicine technologies have been around for decades (NASA started delivering health care remotely to astronauts in the early 1960s), the use of telemedicine or “telehealth” as a health care delivery option has hit the mainstream only in the past few years. Telemedicine gives employees a more convenient way to connect with a doctor to ...

Going Self-Insured: Another Option to Managing Rising Medical Costs

Gone are the days when the only option an employer had to provide its employees with health insurance coverage was through a fully-insured health insurance policy. With this conventional health plan, an employer pays a fixed monthly premium to an insurance company to cover the anticipated costs of healthcare claims. The insurer collects the monthly ...

Preventive Benefits Are a Win-Win

The Affordable Care Act requires non-grandfathered health benefit plans to offer preventive benefits with no cost sharing. While this is an inflexible legal mandate, there are valuable long-term gains when employees use these benefits. These gains include having healthier and more productive employees and catching chronic health conditions in the early stages before they become ...

WGAT The Importance of Educating Employees of Their Health Benefit Coverage

Despite the uncertainty of the Affordable Care Act mandate, employers continue to pay a significant portion of the cost for employee health benefits. Now more than ever, employers need to educate their employees on the true value of those benefits, not just at open enrollment time, but throughout the year. Here are some reasons why ...

Expanding Service Offerings to Further Reduce Employer Health Costs

With a combined total of 80-plus years providing employee health benefits and services to employer groups, Western Growers Assurance Trust together with Pinnacle Claims Management continue to find additional ways to help employers save money on their health care costs each year. Below are some of the services that we have added or expanded upon ...

Comprehensive Care for the Diversified Needs of the Ag Employer

For more than six decades, Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT) has taken pride in partnering with WG members to offer an affordable and quality health care solution to provide to their employees. Here is an overview of why WGAT continues to be a leader in providing ag health benefits…now and in the future: Caring Customer ...

Better Together: Technology Advances in Health Care

As technology evolves, the way employees access health care has undergone massive shifts to improve accuracy and methods of care. Errors are costly in any profession, but none as high as in medicine—a study by Johns Hopkins cited medical mistakes as the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer. Advancements in Electronic ...

A Stroll Down Memory Lane: 60 Years of Service

There’s an old adage that life can only be understood looking backwards and only lived moving forward. When Western Growers Assurance Trust (WGAT) was founded in 1957, it was the beginning of something unique—there was a large gap between the agriculture and health care industry that needed to be bridged. Little did our founders know ...

The Health and Wellness Landscape

Health and wellness are ideals everyone strives for, but finding a balance of the two while navigating the intricacies of our daily lives is something many struggle to achieve. When life throws some unexpected turns into the mix, it not only creates stress at home but also in the workplace. The effects of those stressors ...