This Is Why Innovative Healthcare Benefits Programs Should Include Menopause

Women find it hard to get treatment

A pausitive health survey indicated women often feel unprepared for the changes which may ensue during the menopause journey. They also lack sufficient knowledge to enable the self-advocacy skills needed to seek and obtain the help they want and need.

And it’s not just women who feel unprepared and who are insufficiently educated.

Many may also discover a healthcare system unprepared to address their needs. In its coverage of the topic, AARP found only a small minority of women+ get the care they deserve, and shared a story of a woman who struggled with these conversations with doctors.

A Yale University review of insurance claims found that while 60% of women+ with significant menopause symptoms get medical attention, nearly three-quarters are left untreated. 

pausitive health’s founder has heard these cries for help from women+ too and a friend’s story inspired this concierge menopause experience. 

Doctors don’t have adequate training in menopause, so don’t be surprised if you have a similar experience. 

Doctors with specialty training and a menopause certification are getting easier to find with directories like the one from The Menopause Society.

While employers can’t solve all the reasons women find it hard to get treatment, they can begin educating women and providing healthcare benefits to their workforce to help change the narrative. 

The menopause journey

By 2025, one billion women globally will be in the midst of the menopause journey.

Menopause is defined as the point at which a woman has gone 12 months without a period. It represents the cessation of the ability to reproduce (the “pause”).

The average age of menopause is 51. There are 61 million women over the age of 50 in the U.S. workforce. (In the UK, this segment of the population represents the fastest-growing portion of its workforce.)

But, the journey starts much earlier. It’s so long it’s more like a menopause marathon!  

The stage in the menopause journey that comes to mind for most people and that most think of as menopause is actually perimenopause, which is defined as the years leading up to menopause.

So, even employees in their 40s may be starting to experience the symptoms of menopause.

Healthcare and productivity costs of menopause

Menopause impacts a woman and her family physically, emotionally, and mentally. 75% of women experience vasomotor symptoms (VSMs) like hot flashes and night sweats.

And VSMs are just the most common and well-known of a broad spectrum of symptoms that negatively impact the physical and mental health and well-being (and ultimately the quality of life) of this critical workforce segment.

According to Frost and Sullivan, healthcare costs are $2100 per woman per year during the menopause journey.

For vasomotor symptoms alone, utilization of healthcare resources can be 121% higher.

The hormonal disruption of the menopause journey can also make women more vulnerable to depression and other mental health conditions.

Increased risk of disease for midlife women

The changes in estrogen and progesterone which occur during this time can increase the risk of conditions like heart disease, osteoporosis (and therefore hip fracture risk), and hypertension.

And increased cortisol levels contribute to the weight gain commonly experienced by women during this time of their lives. In turn, increases in weight can eventually lead to obesity, increasing the risk of conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, sleep apnea, GI reflux, and breast and colon cancer.

The risk of breast cancer rises with age, so many women+ may find themselves facing both breast cancer and perimenopause at the same time.

Studies have indicated “postmenopausal women have a lower risk of breast cancer than premenopausal women of the same age and childbearing pattern. Risk increases by almost 3% for each year older at menopause (natural or surgery-induced), thus women who have attained menopause at 55 years rather than 45 years, have approximately 30% higher risk.”

And an onset of menopause at age 55 or older also increases the risk of uterine and ovarian cancer.

Treatment for breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers can come with its own panoply of side effects, potentially making managing both cancer and the symptoms of perimenopause much more challenging.

Negative impacts on quality of life and preventive care

Many of the symptoms and conditions related to or exacerbated by menopause – insomnia, fatigue, depression/low mood, VSM (hot flashes/night sweats) – can mean establishing or maintaining a healthy lifestyle routine becomes more difficult.

If you haven’t been able to sleep well or long enough, are fatigued, or are experiencing depression, some of the very actions which might improve your symptoms – healthy eating, physical activity, and addressing stress – can seem out of reach or beyond sustainable motivation.

And the risk is greater that unhealthy coping behaviors manifest by alcohol/substance use disorder may become a self-medicating habit (which also means greater difficulty in achieving a healthy lifestyle and a negative impact on the heart, liver, and brain, to name a few).

Should the women in your company be coping with these symptoms and quality of life factors in silence? Or, does your company want to be one of the examples around the world creating innovative healthcare benefits and menopause-friendly policies?

Z. Colette Edwards, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of pausitive health, spoke about how the menopause journey impacts a woman’s health and how we can innovate the healthcare ecosystem to help women+ during a HITLAB Symposium.