What You Should Know:
– Today, Walmart announced it is teaming up with Included Health, a LGBTQ+ focused care navigation platform to provide a new healthcare benefit for LGBTQ+ employees and their loved ones.
– Through its partnership with Grand Rounds, associates on a Walmart medical plan and their covered dependents will now be eligible to leverage Included Health’s care-navigation platform tailored for the LGBTQ+ community.
Why It Matters
LGBTQ+ people face serious discrimination in healthcare settings, and are 2-3 times more likely than others to avoid care. Included Health is the first comprehensive healthcare navigation platform for the LGBTQ+ community.
As an employer-sponsored, free healthcare benefit for LGBTQ+ employees and family members, Included Health acts as your advocate. Key features of Included Health’s services include:
– Connecting – They help members find providers who are clinically competent in understanding their health nuances, risks and concerns.
– Empowering – Care coordinators offer support on a range of topics beyond provider pairing, like understanding insurance benefits, coming out at work and parenting an LGBTQ+ youth.
– Advocating – They offer specific support in planning for gender affirming care.
Over the past year, Walmart has doubled down on its commitments to inclusive well-being by growing its suite of benefits aimed at meeting the needs of all associates and their families. With Included Health, Walmart associates and their loved ones can find healthcare providers who understand the specific health needs of the LGBTQ+ community, get insurance coverage for gender-affirming surgery, access family planning resources, and more.
“We often say inclusion means building a Walmart for everyone. Today, we’re taking another important step in our journey of developing well-being programs that help all of our associates and their families live better,” said Lisa Woods, Vice President, Physical & Emotional Well-being in the announcement.
