LGBTQ-inclusive healthcare is needed now more than ever
The LGBTQ community faces waves of legislation aimed at reducing their bodily autonomy and right to healthcare. If employers want to make a stand with their LGBTQ-identifying employees, they have to go beyond ERG events and social media posts during Pride Month.
The ACLU is tracking 409 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S., with many banning and criminalizing gender-affirming care for trans-youth, while creating exemptions for cisgender youth or even forcing this care onto intersex youth. Other bills want to block funding to medical centers that offer gender-affirming care as well as insurance coverage for transgender people.
Given that half of LGBTQ-identifying professionals are not out at work, employers may be underestimating just how many of their workers and their families are impacted by this kind of legislation, explains Brad Nations, chief growth officer at FOLX Health, an LGBTQ-focused virtual healthcare and navigation platform.
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“There’s a wide variety of challenges that face this community — I see it myself as a dad of a trans daughter, and I see it every single day in our work at FOLX,” he says. “But the number one challenge that people are facing in many cases is just access to care.”
In fact, FOLX Health began partnering with employers as an employee benefit after noticing that many of their consumers came to their platform after having trouble finding a provider through their employer-provided health plan. Nations underlines that even if an employer has a large medical provider network with their insurance plan, queer employees may still struggle to find a doctor who can address their needs. FOLX notes that half of the LGBTQ community reports some form of healthcare discrimination.
“I hear this both in the market and in my own house,” says Nations. “In many cases, this community has to educate their provider more than the provider educates them.”
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Nations asks employers to consider if their health plan can help their queer employees seek care, or if it acts as another deterrent. Nation emphasizes two essential features for an LGBTQ-inclusive health plan: a virtual model and a knowledgeable provider network.
Through FOLX, users can access virtual primary care services alongside access to birth control, family-building resources, gender-affirming hormone replacement therapy, care navigation and PrEP, which is an HIV-prevention drug. Since users can make their appointment online, they can avoid long wait times or traveling long distances.
“It can take five, six or seven months to see a provider, especially for the transgender population,” says Nations. “We can get that down to a matter of days. You can imagine the impact that has. It’s a lifesaver.”
Once a patient wishes to take their care to an in-person provider, FOLX helps identify clinicians within that patient’s locale and insurance network using its own database of 20,000 providers who have experience working with LGBTQ patients.
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“If you can’t find access to care or a provider who understands and validates your gender identity and sexual orientation, you will just start avoiding care altogether,” he says. “I encourage employers to survey their employees and hear from those willing to raise their hand and identify. Employers will be shocked at the experiences that this community has today.”
From providers flat-out refusing to care for a queer patient to even accusing the patient of being mentally ill for their gender identity and sexual orientation, the LGBTQ community risk their physical and mental well-being when they see the doctor who does not understand or support their situation.
Nations firmly believes it would be in employers’ best interest to actionably support LGBTQ access to healthcare. But beyond keeping workers and their families healthy, which leads to higher employee retention and productivity, employers have the opportunity to be on the right side of history, says Nations.
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“As the rhetoric and the bills and all those things begin to stack up, the importance of this only becomes that much greater,” he says. “You have a community that every single day is hearing from their leadership, whether it’s in their state or just in the country, that their rights need to be taken away.”
If companies truly stand with the queer community, Nations advises them to consider investing in an inclusive healthcare model, whether that means making adjustments to their current plan or partnering with a third party like FOLX Health.
“We just want to empower this community and give them a safe space to seek healthcare,” says Nations. “Employers play a massive role in this.”
