Men’s Health is an Overlooked Part of Family Health: Why Employers Should Rethink Their Benefits Strategy

Over the past decade, employer-sponsored healthcare has undergone a significant transformation. Mental health solutions are finally mainstream. Fertility benefits are expanding. Women’s health has received overdue attention and innovation. Yet amid this evolution, one critical area remains largely ignored: men’s health.

More than 88% of working-age men have unmet preventive, reproductive, and hormonal health needs. Despite making up half the workforce, men are falling through the cracks of today’s benefits strategies, often suffering in silence, delaying care, and showing up at the doctor’s only when it’s too late.

For employers, this is more than a missed opportunity. It’s a growing liability financially, operationally, and culturally. Men’s health must be redefined not just as a clinical issue, but as a strategic business lever.

Men’s health is family health

When men aren’t well, their families feel it.

A father, who is unbeknownst to himself and his family, is battling low testosterone may lack the energy to be present at home and engage with his children. A couple struggling with male-factor infertility may face stress, relationship strain, and delays in building their family. A late-stage prostate cancer diagnosis upsets the entire eco-system of the family and not only disrupts just the patient’s life, but their partner’s, their children’s, and their financial stability.

Family health includes the entire household and everyone in it. When employers invest in men’s health, they’re also investing in:

• Partner wellness, since stress and emotional strain often fall on spouses when men delay care.
• Reproductive equity, as fertility care, should be inclusive, recognizing that up to 50% of infertility cases involve male factors.
• Financial resilience is strengthened through early intervention, which reduces medical bankruptcies, extended care needs, and career disruptions.

In other words, supporting men’s health is supporting family health, which ultimately supports workforce well-being.

Ignoring men’s health is costly: Time to rethink the benefits strategy

Every year, millions of men silently struggle with treatable, manageable conditions such as low testosterone, sexual dysfunction, fertility issues, prostate concerns, and many more. Yet studies show 55% of men with symptoms don’t seek care, and not because they don’t want to, but because the healthcare system isn’t built to meet them where they are.

This gap in men’s health care creates significant costs for employers, such as:

• Higher claims costs: Delayed care results in advanced-stage conditions, ER visits, and high-cost interventions that could have been avoided with early screening and management.
• Productivity loss: Men with untreated hormonal issues, prostate problems, or chronic urological conditions often experience fatigue, brain fog, and physical discomfort, thus reducing focus and output at work.
• Increased absenteeism: Untreated chronic illnesses, prostate conditions, hormonal imbalance, and late-stage cancer diagnoses lead to more sick days and extended time off.

The current benefits model is fragmented. Men often don’t know where to go for help, feel embarrassed to ask, or simply do not have the time to go to conventional brick-and-mortar appointments. Traditional provider networks aren’t optimized for male-specific needs, and urology access is limited. Other specialties, such as endocrinology, are siloed, while non-specialized telehealth often stops at general care.

This is where employers have a unique opportunity to build a clear business case and to rethink how they approach care delivery for their male population. Providing a proactive virtual specialized men’s health solution can indeed close this gap.

The new model: Virtual, at-home men’s health 

A better approach is to implement virtual men’s health solutions that offer confidential, accessible, and clinically robust care pathways, all from the comfort of home, office, or any other convenient location for the male patient. This model has already proven effective in different areas, such as mental health and women’s health, driving higher engagement and better outcomes.

The virtual model includes:

• Virtual visits with board-certified urologists
• At-home diagnostic kits for hormones, semen analysis, prostate markers, and other male-related conditions
• Personalized care plans addressing preventative care, prostate, hormonal, sexual, and reproductive health
• Data-driven insights to track progress and manage risk
  

Digital men’s health solutions significantly increase engagement, particularly among men who traditionally avoid preventive care. This model supports earlier detection of high-risk conditions while helping reduce avoidable ER visits and late-stage interventions. By lowering healthcare costs, boosting productivity, and improving employee satisfaction, it addresses key priorities for employee benefit leaders.

The bottom line: Men’s health is family health and a smarter business strategy

When men’s health is ignored, the consequences ripple across the workforce, including delayed diagnoses, rising claims, decreased productivity, absenteeism, and long-term strain on families. Yet most benefits strategies still fail to address the specific, preventable conditions that impact nearly half the employee population.

Reframing men’s health as a strategic priority, not just a clinical issue, opens the door to meaningful change. It means earlier intervention, fewer high-cost medical occurrences, and improved engagement from a group that has historically avoided care. This also means shorter leaves, stronger performance, and a culture that values equity in access and outcomes.

This isn’t about shifting focus away from other initiatives and solutions, but it’s about completing the picture. Forward-thinking employers who integrate men’s health into their benefits design are seeing reduced costs, better employee morale, and healthier families overall.

Men’s health is family health. It’s workforce health. It’s financial health. And it’s business health.

Photo: NicoElNino, Getty Images

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