Using Empathy To Build Employee Trust In Health Plans

When people enter a big box store like Target or Costco, they aren’t left to wander around aimlessly. Signage guides them through the maze of aisles, and staff is on hand to provide direction. When people enter the maze of the healthcare system, such guidance is hard to find. There’s nobody to greet you at the door, hand you a yellow smiley face sticker, and show you the way. Employer-sponsored health plans are a perfect example—and a testament to the fact that building employee trust requires more than just offering benefits.

Too often, consumers don’t understand what their benefits cover or how to best access them. This disconnect leads to wasted employer investment, missed opportunities for preventive care, higher eventual costs—and fractured trust as employees wonder, “What the hell is my benefits plan good for, anyway?!”

Healthcare navigation helps prevent such fissures by serving as a single point of contact for care coordination, claims administration, and personalized support.

Successful navigation guides the employee through the healthcare maze in a way that meets their unique needs. Proactive identification of each individual’s healthcare needs is critical to improving patient outcomes and reducing costs.

In my experience, empathy is the key to identifying employees' needs. It allows for transparency and trust, which are essential when gleaning insights into delicate healthcare topics.

Building Employee Trust with Empathetic Curiosity

When navigating the complexities of an employer benefits plan, employees may have a variety of questions, from what services are covered to whether a doctor is in-network. Organizations rely on healthcare navigation services to answer these queries and provide guidance.

However, the best healthcare navigation providers don’t just answer these queries. They recognize that every point of contact with an employee is an opportunity to grow trust.

For example, say an employee calls their healthcare navigation provider because they want to know if a certain oncologist is in-network. Instead of simply answering that one question, a skilled care coordinator comes from a place of curiosity and, respectfully, digs a little deeper. Why is the employee seeking an oncologist? Maybe it turns out they’ve had a cancer diagnosis and want a second opinion.

The care coordinator will recognize that a potential cancer-fighting journey requires more than a single oncology appointment and, from this point, step into the role of guide for the patient’s journey.

Going forward, that patient may need help coordinating surgical interventions and chemotherapy, securing disability benefits to address the financial impact of missed work, and obtaining follow-up care and support.

For empathetic care coordinators, such topics are relevant because they are relevant to the patient—and helping them is the top priority.

Giving a Face to Healthcare

In the hands of an empathetic care coordinator, an employee benefits plan is given a face—and trust grows, not only in the care coordinator but in the plan and, by extension, the employer behind that plan.

Furthermore, as that relationship develops over time, it becomes easier for care coordinators to elicit more personal “reveals” from the employees they assist, which can allow for even more personalized care.

Take that same chemotherapy patient mentioned above, for example. Say, in the course of their treatment, they are admitted to the hospital for dehydration—a risk for oncology patients.

Afterward, the patient calls their care coordinator to see if an in-home IV drip could be covered, hoping to avoid future hospital admissions—especially cumbersome for someone who is already fatigued from treatment.

The care coordinator could just give them a yes/no answer. But a great care coordinator, knowing the patient’s history, goes deeper. They might ask: “You say you’re struggling with dehydration—is the chemotherapy causing nausea?”

Now, nobody wants to come out on the phone and say, “I was puking all night long, and it got so bad I needed IV fluids!”

But given this delicate line of questioning and the existing relationship with the care coordinator, the patient might open up and admit, “I’ve been getting sick to my stomach!”

The care coordinator can then not only research the possibility of an in-home IV drip but also consider complementary care options—say, connecting the patient with a local service that delivers nutrient-dense meals to counteract potential malnutrition—another issue for oncology patients struggling with nausea.

This can help prevent future hospital admissions, which can reduce healthcare costs and, most importantly, ensure a more comfortable healthcare journey.

Creating a Healthcare Journey That Honors Human Complexity

U.S. healthcare and corporate America share an unfortunate trait—both tend to treat people like cogs in a machine. Needless to say, that’s not a recipe for building employee trust. Healthcare navigation restores humanity to the patient journey, offering personalized guidance through the healthcare maze. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to deepen that trust, not through scripted responses but through genuine empathy and curiosity.

The result is a healthcare experience that honors human complexity rather than trying to standardize it.