5 healthcare lessons to take away from 2024

5 healthcare lessons that defined 2024

December 17, 2024 3:49 PM

A woman sits while her doctor speaks to her.

HR teams and benefit leaders know better than most just how endlessly complicated and expensive healthcare benefits are. Do they have a fighting chance in 2025?

According to consulting firm Mercer, employers should expect another year of higher-than-average healthcare costs, with the total benefit cost per employee rising by 5.8%. Once again, employers are faced with choosing between somehow absorbing the added costs, passing the financial burden to employees or cutting back on benefits.

While there's no one-stop solution, it's increasingly clear many employers need to plan ahead or repeat the same health and budget-damaging loop. From alternative health plan models to GLP-1 access and autoimmune disease support, now more than ever, employers have to figure out how to mitigate costs while improving the health of their workforce.

Before the new year, EBN looked at five lessons employers learned in 2024 that may help them in 2025.

Employers can't afford to stick with a traditional healthcare model

Each year, employers grapple with the ever-rising costs of healthcare by adjusting their budgets or reducing coverage to make room for inflated costs. Increasingly, they're looking for a better way.

"The level of price intolerance has been met, and for many employers, exceeded," says Oliver Ayres, president of Key Benefit Administrators. "And because of that, they're really being forced to look at alternative methods."

Read more on EBN.

Autoimmune disease support may be the next essential healthcare benefit

Employers know their healthcare costs take a huge hit from their employees who suffer from chronic conditions. But are they doing anything to mitigate it?

Maven Clinic, the world's largest virtual clinic for women and family health is now offering autoimmune disease support as an employee benefit through its partnership with WellTheory, a platform dedicated to helping patients reduce their symptoms. As many as 50 million Americans have one of 100 different autoimmune diseases, and 80% of those affected are women, according to a Stanford Medicine-led study. Autoimmune diseases, all defined by an individual's immune system attacking its own tissues, often go misdiagnosed or dismissed — something both the CEO of Maven and the CEO of WellTheory are determined to change.

"We really bonded over the fact that we are trying to care for populations that have been historically underserved and overlooked," says Ellen Rudolph, co-founder and CEO of WellTheory. "Autoimmune disease disproportionately impacts women and people of color, and we're taking a similar path to [Maven] by partnering with employers to offer zero-cost-to-consumer care."

Read more on EBN.

Employees need more than GLP-1 access to succeed

"There's no debating the GLP-1 medications have a ton of great proven outcomes for people with diabetes and people with obesity," says Hall. "But the unit price of these drugs is substantially high in the United States. It's essential for employers to focus on behavior change alongside medication so employees can reach their goals."

Hall advises employers to include coverage for GLP-1s, but do so in tandem with weight or diet management programs that prioritize sustainable, evidence-based lifestyle changes that will help type 2 diabetes or obese patients improve their health. This starts with ensuring employees have access to and engage in primary care.

Read more on EBN.

Climate change will continue to impact employee health

Between record-breaking summer temperatures and the increase in natural disasters, climate change is more visible than ever before. But what some employers may not see is the toll climate change has already taken on employee health.

Research from the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action and Natural Resources Defense Council found that symptoms of climate change, like fossil fuel-driven air pollution, are responsible for $820 billion in healthcare costs each year. That includes conditions like respiratory and heart diseases, food-related illnesses, pest-related diseases, and potentially sustaining injuries from natural disasters like floods or wildfires.

"The reality is that climate change is impacting people's health right now," says Baylis Beard, director of sustainability at Blue Shield of California. "There are health impacts from asthma to premature labor due to high heat, to impediments to care like people giving birth on the side of the road due to flooding. Environmental sustainability and healthcare are critically connected."

Read more on EBN.

Trump's incoming presidency will likely bring more restrictions to reproductive care

In March, Trump voiced support for a nationwide ban on abortions, but towards the end of his campaign, he said that abortion access should remain a state-by-state decision.

Further compounding concerns is that the Trump 2016 administration and 2024 campaign team included Project 2025 contributors — contributors who helped outline conservative policy recommendations like forcing states to report personal information of all patients who received abortion care and restricting access to birth control and emergency contraception — and it's likely that reproductive freedoms will face a wave of legislative and legal challenges during the next four years.

But mothers and family advocacy groups like MomsRising are determined to push back against a future where Americans are forced to give birth despite the risk it may pose to their health, safety and livelihoods, says Monifa Bandele, senior vice president and chief strategy officer at MomsRising.

"We believe in access to healthcare for everyone, and we know that what's happening with this election puts that at risk even more than it was prior to the election," she says. "We know this is about controlling women's bodies — that's the intention, that's the threat. So we are heartbroken, but we are also resolved to continue to fight."

Read more on EBN.