Addressing GI Health: Four Benefits to Consider

Guest ContributorJuly 17, 2025July 17, 2025

Female patient describes abdominal pain et the doctor know about the symptoms and the doctor takes the patient's history and records it.

An estimated 60-70 million people in the United States are affected by digestive disease¹—such as irritable bowel disease, acid reflux or pancreatitis—and total health care expenditures for gastrointestinal (GI) diseases total $135.9 billion dollars annually, which is greater than the cost of other common diseases.²

But the impact of gastrointestinal health extends beyond digestive-specific diseases. Between 70% and 80% of immune cells actually reside in the gut—more formally known as the GI tract.³ That means that our overall ability to fight disease is largely dependent on what’s happening in our guts.

And that’s only the start of how the GI system mediates whole-body health.

Consider heart disease and strokes, for example. They’re the number one killers of people in the United States, and they’re both closely tied to nutrition.⁴ Dig deeper and you’ll see that digestive health is closely tied to nearly every other aspect of health and wellness, too. Following are a few examples.

Mental health: 95% of serotonin is made in the digestive tract.⁵ Serotonin plays a role in mental illnesses like bipolar disorder and depression, so gut dysbiosis (that is, when its microbes are out of balance) can impact mental health. Further, conditions like depression can trigger cravings of “highly palatable” (and highly processed) foods; however, eating these foods can negatively impact gut bacteria, which can impact the body’s ability to produce serotonin.⁶

Diabetes: Diabetes has a two-way relationship with the gut. First, like heart disease, it’s a leading chronic condition that can be managed partially with dietary interventions. Second, people who have diabetes often suffer from gastroparesis, a painful GI condition.

Obesity: 42% of adults in the U.S. have obesity, a condition that costs the health system $173 billion per year according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and contributes to multiple digestive diseases.⁷ On top of that, GLP-1 drugs, which have had breakthrough success in treating obesity, often come with GI-related side effects like nausea and constipation.

Vision: Among the immune cells in the gut are T-cells specific to the retina. Uveitis, an inflammation of the middle layer of the eye, is connected to those T-cells and is more common in people whose gut microbiota have less diversity and fewer anti-inflammatory species.⁸ In other words, less-healthy guts correlate with higher rates of certain vision conditions.

Dental health: Cavities (aka tooth decay) are another top chronic condition in the U.S. They can directly impair eating, which can cause or worsen digestive issues.

The reality is that addressing gut health among employees may help them achieve and maintain full-body wellness. That has financial implications for employers and plan sponsors.

Costs and Challenges for Health Plans

With the annual cost to treat someone with digestive disease ranging from $10,000 to $107,000 per year, it’s easy to see the direct impact on health plans.⁹ As many as 40% of Americans regularly experience painful or debilitating gastrointestinal symptoms, i.e., the type that would cause them to seek out medical care.¹⁰

The question here is twofold: What causes treatment costs to be so high, and how could costs be reduced?

The first stop for people with employer-sponsored health insurance is typically a primary care provider (PCP). Today, the average wait time to see a PCP is 29 days, according to an ECG Management Consultants 2024 report.¹¹ However, few PCPs have specialized training in nutrition or digestive issues, which means an initial doctor’s visit often leads to a referral to a gastroenterologist. Nationwide, the average wait time to see a gastroenterologist is 48 days and as high as six months in some places, the same report notes.

In a typical scenario, an employee may wait more than two months from the point when the symptoms are bad enough to seek medical care to their first appointment with a GI doctor. From there, it’s common for diagnosis to require multiple tests, each with its own waiting time. Those wait times can add up if the patient has trouble getting a diagnosis. More than 40% of people with IBS have symptoms for more than five years before receiving a diagnosis.¹²

It’s important to understand what happens in the time between being uncomfortable enough to schedule a PCP appointment and actually getting appropriate treatment. In many cases, GI pain is bad enough that people seek emergency care; in fact, digestive issues are a leading cause of ER admissions, and about 13% of ER admissions related to the digestive system result in hospital admission.¹³

So, providing a way for employees to access GI practitioners in a more timely manner can greatly reduce the time to treatment and therefore the cost of treatment of GI symptoms and conditions.

In addition, employees that have other health conditions may not access treatment that could benefit them. For example, a participant who gets treatment for symptoms of depression may not receive the nutrition counseling that could help address the underlying cause of those symptoms in the long term.

Similarly, employees with conditions such as heart disease and diabetes may be prescribed medication to manage their symptoms and offered high-level dietary guidance, but little support is given for making the difficult, fundamental changes to diet and lifestyle that can have such a big impact on halting and even reversing disease progression.

There’s evidence that finding a better way to treat GI issues could also result in financial benefits for employers. Employees with GI issues report lower productivity levels on days they have symptoms. Some also report missing work to address those symptoms.

What Can Employers and Health Plan Sponsors Do?

Employers and plan sponsors that want to address gut health may want to consider the following steps.

Offer GI-Specific Benefits

One option for plan sponsors to consider is working with vendors that offer digital platforms that specifically address GI health. On these platforms, employees can:

Schedule and attend telehealth appointments with GI professionals, such as health coaches, registered dietitians, physicians and gastroenterologists
Get access to a customized care plan to address GI symptoms or treat GI conditions
Receive ongoing, customized support for symptom and/or condition management.

A recent study of a school district that offered a digital digestive health platform showed that among employees over 50, those who used the platform took an average of 1.7 fewer sick days annually than those who did not participate.¹⁴

Ideally, these benefits should also include bidirectional referrals, meaning that practitioners whom employees can access via the platform should be able to refer employees to relevant employer-sponsored benefits not mediated through the platform.

For example, if an employee is working with a health coach to manage diabetes symptoms, that health coach should also be empowered to notify the employee of other diabetes management benefits the employer offers, such as fitness trackers or gym memberships.

Educate Employees

Every employee can benefit from the same basic information about GI wellness. Employers can help boost overall GI health by providing resources about the value of a healthy diet, hydration, stress management and regular movement to promote a healthy gut. They can also address topics like food intolerance, lactose intolerance and the benefits of different diets as well as promote recommended screenings such as those for colorectal cancer.

Education can come in the form of lunch and learns, webinars provided by brokers or the HR team. Offering education also can help normalize discussions about GI issues at work, which should provide a form of relief for employees dealing with these issues.

Provide Flexible Work Options

Right now, return-to-office (RTO) mandates are trending. For employers interested in promoting gut health, however, allowing remote or hybrid work can make it easier for employees to manage their GI symptoms.

Offer Wellness Programs

The GI system touches nearly every other part of health and wellness, which means nearly every health and wellness offering an employer provides can deliver some GI benefits and, therefore, improve the overall gut health of the workforce. Programs can focus on healthy eating, weight management and physical activity.

Meditation classes, nutrition information sessions, exercise classes or gym memberships, and more can contribute to overall wellness—especially when employers explain how these offerings can improve gut health.

Plans also can incentivize preventive visits for digestive health such as colonoscopies and provide access to nutrition counseling.

GI Health and Overall Health Outcomes

The research is clear: Gut health is an important factor in overall health. Employers that provide access to employee benefits that address GI health may be able to improve the health outcomes of their plan participants while also reducing health care costs.

Endnotes

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