Health Update: Getting to the heart of your cardiovascular health and wellness benefits – What Experts Say

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February is American Heart Month, and an appropriate time to remember that cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the nation’s leading cause of death and disability.

By 2050, the American Heart Association projects 60% of U.S. adults will be affected by cardiovascular disease and it estimates that cardiovascular disease costs U.S. employers $168 billion annually in lost productivity.

Since most of us spend a third of our days on the job, it stands to reason that the workplace is one of the most powerful places to provide education and resources that help reduce risk, detect early warning signs, and simplify care for people with cardiovascular health needs.

When evaluating your benefit offerings, understanding the tools and programs available to prevent, detect and treat CVD can support both employee wellness and control costs.

Prevention is the heart of cardiovascular health and wellness

The most effective way to reduce the impact of cardiovascular disease is through prevention. That prevention starts with the guidance of an individual’s primary care physician alongside other medical providers that may see. They serve as the first line of defense in monitoring and managing heart health.

Employers can also play a role by offering education and benefits that support healthy behaviors. When employees understand the preventive services and wellness programs available to them through their benefits—and when those programs are easy to access—they’re far more likely to take advantage of routine screenings, lifestyle resources, and other tools that help maintain long-term heart health.

The best way to reduce the impact of CVD is prevention. Your team’s pathway to CVD health and wellness begins with their primary care physician and providers who routinely care for their health. Understanding prevention and wellness benefit options and communicating them to your staff can provide supplemental support. Employees are far more likely to access preventative care and participate in wellness programs when they know what is covered and when participation is easy.

Your health insurer likely already provides this kind of support. Every Excellus BlueCross BlueShield member, for example, has access to our Care Management team, who are ready to help them translate good intentions into routine habits. Members benefit from the expertise of registered nurses, licensed social workers, pharmacists, registered dietitians, or licensed physicians who support each individual’s wellness journey.

The most critical component to CVD prevention is healthy eating. Poor diet contributes to 45 % of cardiovascular deaths, making nutrition education critical. Ask your health insurer whether your employees have access to their registered dietitians, who can work with them to identify heart-healthy eating habits and build customized nutrition plans based on each member’s unique needs.

Digital wellness tools, from activity trackers to mobile apps that offer daily tips and reminders, help make it easy to stay the course of a healthy lifestyle. At Excellus BCBS, for example, we contract with Wellframe® to provide access to an application, where eligible members can communicate via text with a care manager to get a personalized health plan, set up medication reminders and connect with a dietitian.* ThriveWellSM connects members to a fitness tracker, along with  online health checks and digital coaching to make simple health changes.

Employers can also create reminder communications about scheduling well care visits and annual screenings while reinforcing that preventive care is covered.

Giving employees a sense of what is already available to them in the way of heart healthy wellness programs can be key to generating interest and engagement.

Mitigate risk before it becomes a crisis

Risk accumulates quietly. Blood pressure creeps up for years. Sleep fragments under long shifts and rotating schedules. Stress compounds with mounting responsibility and daily pressures. For many employees, the early stages of heart disease look like normal life, until they don’t.

Mitigation of risk begins with setting up systems for early detection and making those systems easily accessible. We’ve seen examples of this in the office environment with partners who install onsite blood pressure, glucose, and cholesterol monitoring equipment or host on-site screening events. Some also guide their employees using American Heart Association tools like My Life Check. These simple steps can be tailored to any work environments and easy to set up.

Mitigation also means addressing workplace contributors directly. Oftentimes, the important components of health and wellness like sleep, stress management, movement and nutrition are not compatible with the way work is designed. Flexible scheduling that encourages time for wellness appointments, safe environments that minimize exposure to harmful airborne particulates and other hazardous materials, and management practices that reduce chronic overwork, serve as potent cardiovascular risk interventions.

Through program design and implementation and by measuring participation, trend lines, benefit utilization, and employee feedback, the benefits of CVD risk mitigation will become apparent over time.

Consider care after a cardiac event

Even with the best preventive care, emergencies can still occur. In the event of a cardiac incident like a heart attack or stroke, be sure your employees are aware of their emergency care and hospitalization coverage. Ensure your employees also understand their cardiac specialists and inpatient services coverage as well. Providing information about pharmacy benefits helps ensure employees can access the heart medications they need following a cardiac event.

It’s also critical to remember that recovery from a cardiac event doesn’t stop at hospital discharge. Many health plans offer post-event care that includes both virtual and in-person options for cardiac rehabilitation programs to help employees regain strength, manage symptoms, and reduce future risk. Virtual cardiac rehab programs like Movn Health at Excellus BCBS offer important remote services such as virtual group exercise classes, nutrition and wellness education classes, and monitoring of important health indicators through secure, internet-connected devices.

Emotional recovery is just as important. Be sure to communicate coverage options for counseling and therapy to help with anxiety, depression, or trauma post-event.

Inform and educate

Education helps address the root causes of CVD. Use employee communication channels to deliver information about heart health and the importance of prevention.

One way to engage employees in this education is through storytelling and clarity. Share real employee journeys that show small steps and practical wins. Use multiple channels like team huddles, internal blog posts, digital signage like screen savers, and manager-led communications to deliver these stories along with timely and important reminders and educational messages.

Most importantly, lead with empathy. Many employees carry invisible burdens. Your tone can be the difference between someone scheduling that first screening or putting it off another year.

Building employee engagement

Ensuring employees know, understand and use benefits focused on cardiovascular health can be daunting, especially with the compounding pressures facing employers today. Here is a 90-day plan framework that can help:

Month 1 — Take inventory: Audit your benefits for heart health supports (screenings, primary care access, cardiology specialist support or coverage, access to dietitians, tobacco cessation, mental health). Survey employees anonymously about barriers to utilizing benefits and preferred methods for communication. Identify champions in each department who will model participation and share feedback.

Month 2 — Launch: Host on-site blood pressure and glucose screenings. Launch simple movement options such as walking meetings or step competitions. Provide educational communications with easy enrollment guidance and direct links to online tools. Rebalance cafeteria and vending selections and place fresh fruit where people gather or send out tips on healthy eating while working from home. This toolkit can be used to provide useful information and reminders to your employees.

Month 3 — Reinforce and refine: Share early data and stories internally about what’s working and where there is room to adjust. Train managers on supportive conversations that focus on time flexibility and workload planning that reduces excessive hours. Keep communication consistent, empathetic and transparent.

Don’t expect major shifts initially. Expect steady progress that looks like more screenings completed, more primary care visits scheduled, more employees using dietitian services, and more managers offering flexible time to manage wellbeing and preventative care.

The bottom line

National spending on heart disease is projected to rise sharply in the next decade, from $18 billion to $45 billion by 2035. We should take that seriously.

When employers mitigate risk, educate about benefits and open pathways to access, they protect hearts while also helping to control rising costs. Most importantly, they build workplaces where wellbeing is at the heart of it all.

*Wellframe is an independent company that provides a health and wellness support mobile app to Excellus BCBS members.

Paul Valley is senior vice president, commercial group markets, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.

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