Long story short: Are your healthcare benefits falling short?

February 10, 2023 11:26 AM

Employers and HR leaders spend the majority of their working hours ensuring their benefits are serving the greatest number of employees. But leaders may be missing a few critical gaps.

In this week's top stories, racial bias continues to impact Black and BIPOC health, and employee wellness overall. From birth outcomes to lung and kidney health, physicians are operating on outdated and biased assumptions that can harm a large demographic of patients, explains Dr. Jayne Morgan, cardiologist and clinical director of the COVID task force at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with an expiring provision that would end vaccine access at pharmacies across half of the U.S., more must be done to create equitable access to healthcare.

Taking a long look at your benefits and ensuring they work together is one way to maximize their efficacy. At Vanguard, the head of total rewards shared how the company views health and wellness holistically, incorporating financial wellness into their healthcare benefit strategies. Ensuring those benefits are easily accessible is the goal of Virgin Pulse — their CEO reveals why this method boosts engagement and provides necessary health interventions as soon as possible.

Consolidation is key to achieving high engagement in health and wellness benefits

Consumers love a good product bundle, but is it possible to bundle and personalize healthcare? In the increasingly intermingled worlds of health and wellness, personal product and treatment suggestions, coaching and tracking can drive engagement and give end users a chance to get in front of their health concerns.

Giving a workforce access to a platform with a variety of resources — from simple medication reminders to more supportive and interactive options such as weight loss coaching — means a holistic approach that only requires employees to enter their health information in one place. Editor Lee Hafner spoke with Chris Michalak, CEO of digital health platform Virgin Pulse, to discuss his organization's approach to helping employees maintain a healthy lifestyle, no matter their needs.

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Consolidation is key to achieving high engagement in health and wellness benefits

Are your healthcare and financial wellness benefits working together?

As historic inflation continues to challenge consumers' wallets, and with healthcare costs expected to jump 10% this year, concerns around health and financial wellness are keeping employees up at night. To help alleviate some of these stresses, employers are increasingly considering the holistic value of their benefits rather than the independent value of individual programs.

"At Vanguard, we think about 401(k), HSA and medical as the three core components of our healthcare plan, and that's where we spend the most money," Alexandra Gotts, head of global total rewards, tells editor-in-chief Stephanie Schomer. She reveals how employers can work to align these areas while keeping budget in mind.

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Are your healthcare and financial wellness benefits working together?

From testing kidney health to giving birth: How racial bias puts Black Americans' health at risk

The last few years have underlined the inequity in the U.S. healthcare system, as Black Americans had the highest mortality rate in the face of COVID. And while some employers are working to design more inclusive, accessible benefits, it may not be enough to rewrite centuries of racial bias in healthcare.

Racial bias is built into the way healthcare providers assess patients when treating COVID, as well as other ailments, Dr. Jayne Morgan, cardiologist and clinical director of the COVID task force at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, explains to associate editor Deanna Cuadra. Dr. Morgan is asking healthcare providers to begin questioning how they assess and treat Black patients, and advises employers to be aware of how the status quo is costing lives. Here are three areas where racism denies Black patients care.

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From testing kidney health to giving birth: How racial bias puts Black Americans' health at risk

The end of the PREP Act will impact access to vaccinations

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, or PREP Act, is set to expire in 2024, and allows pharmacies to administer pediatric-recommended vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines, expanding the role they play in immunization amid the pandemic. While 25 states have already made this authority permanent, the other half of America has not. Without this provision in place, low-income communities and the healthcare system as a whole will be most at-risk.

"Vaccinations are the most cost-beneficial intervention in the healthcare system — we get vaccinated to reduce the burden of illness and morbidity," Robert Popovian, chief science policy officer at Global Healthy Living Foundation, tells associate editor Deanna Cuadra. "When you hinder a patient's ability to get a vaccination, they could get sick, become hospitalized and even die."

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The end of the PREP Act will impact access to vaccinations