Maple's Amii Stephenson highlights benefits disconnect, explains why ‘employees are asking for a fundamentally different experience’
Chronic conditions have become one of the defining workforce challenges for Canadian employers. After all, recent findings from Maple found that 57 per cent of employed Canadians with chronic conditions have missed work, reduced their hours, or taken time away because of their condition.
Meanwhile, another 67 per cent say managing their care makes it harder to stay focused and productive on the job.
A ‘fragmented’ system in group benefits
Amii Stephenson, chief commerical officer at Maple emphasized these findings underscore how chronic care is no longer a niche issue. The impact, she suggests, is far more operational than most organizations recognize as it extends well beyond disability claims or the occasional sick day.
“Chronic conditions are really affecting people while they're actively working every single day," said Stephenson. “You have people there in the seats, but that presenteeism is at play … “[Employees] are asking for a fundamentally different experience. We can talk about productivity and absenteeism and workplace resilience, and those things absolutely matter but behind all of those things are real people and families trying to hold complex lives together inside a very fragmented system. That's why it's become such a workforce issue, not just a healthcare issue,” she added.
Stephenson highlighted the disconnect between what organizations believe they're providing and what employees actually experience. While 71 per cent have benefits coverage, only 26 per cent say those benefits address their care gaps in any meaningful way. According to Stephenson, the conversation for employers is shifting from whether they offer benefits to whether employees can access and navigate the care they need in a way that holds up over time.
Stephenson believes employers need to start treating chronic care as both a workforce resilience issue and a productivity one. She said its effects on attendance, focus, energy, mental well-being, engagement, and retention show up long before a formal disability claim is ever filed.
Yet, the challenge is that many employees are managing these conditions in silence. The report found that approximately 21 per cent chose not to disclose a condition at work for fear of negative consequences.
The consistent message from employees, Stephenson suggests, is that they want care that’s easier to access, navigate, and fit into their daily lives. The strongest signals in the data pointed to continuity and navigation as 74 per cent want better support coordinating providers, prescriptions, specialists, and test results, and 67 per cent want stronger continuity of care and better management of their health records.
Stephenson noted virtual care can play a critical role in closing the gaps between appointments, where employees often feel left on their own, and gives them a way to access care without losing half a workday. The broader opportunity, Stephenson said, isn't to replace in-person care but to build more connected experiences around it.
“The goal isn't to have more healthcare interactions, it's just to reduce the friction that surrounds that care for so many employees so they can spend less time managing the system and more time living their lives,” said Stephenson.
Healthcare access needs a reset
Stephenson acknowledged how the traditional definition of healthcare access, like healthcare coverage and the occasional appointment, doesn’t meet the needs of today's workforce. She underscored how employees managing chronic conditions are also juggling multiple providers, treatments, and care demands while trying to maintain full-time employment, and a system built around isolated interactions no longer matches the reality of how they experience their health journey.
She believes the challenge is twofold - access and coordination - and the two compound each other. 73 per cent of respondents said the system feels so overburdened they don't feel confident accessing timely care.
But getting into the system is only half the problem because employees are also struggling to move through it once they're in. Eighty-five per cent of respondents cited having to share their medical history with different providers, 62 per cent struggle to coordinate care across specialists, while 83 per cent described their care experience as reactive rather than proactive, noted Stephenson.
She suggests the healthcare system still operates on the assumption that patients get sick, receive treatment, and move on. But chronic conditions don't follow that pattern, she said, as they demand ongoing monitoring, follow-up, coordination, and adaptation over time.
"You can technically access multiple providers and still feel completely unsupported if nobody is helping you to coordinate that journey overall," she said. "Modern workers are living in continuous care realities while the system is still organized around isolated moments of care.”
In many cases, she notes how employees have become their own care coordinators — or the coordinators for their family members — taking on the roles of administrator, advocate, and navigator on top of managing complex health concerns.
Is virtual care the answer?
Stephenson said the systems that will work best going forward are the ones that connect care experiences together and help patients navigate that complexity rather than leaving them to manage it alone.
To that end, Maple’s report found that 78 per cent of respondents said 24/7 technology-enabled care would reduce the stress and time involved in managing their condition. Stephenson sees that as more than a preference for convenience because it reflects how people already interact with every other part of their lives.
“It’s not just demand for convenience, it's demand for a fundamentally more connected care experience. It speaks to the way that we access everything in our life today. It's more connected, it’s more high touch, it’s more on demand. People want that in their healthcare too,” she noted.
