Fast progress on transgender benefits

Bruce Jenner’s transition to Caitlyn Jenner has brought transgender issues quickly to the fore. What I had not realized is that major employers and the federal government are well on their way toward providing coverage for transition-related health care. I’m not in a position to comment on the adequacy of the coverage, but just want to make the point that it’s advanced faster than I thought.

According to Business Insurance (Transgender benefits gain attention of employers), the Office of Personnel Management recently required Federal Employee Benefit Plan providers to cover transition-related care, citing an emerging consensus that such treatment is medically necessary.

About half of large employers offer transgender-related surgical coverage compared with 5 percent in 2007, according to a National Business Group on Health survey.

Transgender-related benefits are varied, and include “mental health counseling, hormone replacement therapy and gender reassignment surgery. Some employers… include coverage for facial feminization or reducing the Adam’s apple…” Not every employer offers all categories of benefits.

Private employers aren’t required by law to offer such benefits, but they have various motivations. They include:

• An increasing belief that such coverage is medically necessary, and therefore in keeping with the overall philosophy of health insurance
• A desire to increase competitive positioning in recruiting –including for employees that do not themselves expect to use such coverage but are looking for employers that are progressive
• A realization that the overall costs are likely to be small, typically less than 0.5% of total health care costs
• A defensive view that not offering such benefits could lead to discrimination claims

I don’t typically think about insurance benefits being in the social and cultural vanguard, but at least based on this example that may not be a fair assessment.

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By healthcare business consultant David E. Williams, president of Health Business Group.

from Health Business Blog http://healthbusinessblog.com/2015/07/22/fast-progress-on-transgender-benefits/
via A Health Business Blog