Autoimmune disorders and their impact on the workplace
Autoimmune diseases affect millions and can take years to diagnose. Here's what employers should know about the impact on workforce health.
Millions of Americans navigate their careers while managing an invisible challenge: Autoimmune diseases affect upwards of 23.5M people nationwide — and around 80% of those are women, yet these conditions remain surprisingly unfamiliar to many employers.1
This knowledge gap carries real consequences. Autoimmune diseases typically emerge during prime working years, creating ripples that extend far beyond individual health — affecting productivity, care utilization and long-term workforce planning.2 As employers deepen their focus on employee well-being and chronic condition management, understanding the workforce impact of autoimmune diseases has shifted from optional awareness to strategic necessity.
What autoimmune diseases are — and why diagnoses can take years
Autoimmune diseases defy a simple definition. Rather than a single illness, it represents a complex family of dozens of chronic conditions united by a common thread: The immune system turns against the very body it evolved to protect, mistakenly attacking healthy tissue instead of foreign invaders.3
The reach of autoimmune diseases extend across virtually every system in the human body:
- Rheumatoid arthritis targets the lining of the joints4
- Type 1 diabetes disrupts the endocrine system5
- Celiac disease attacks the digestive tract6
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) compromises the nervous system7
The diversity of conditions — spanning organs, symptoms and severity — creates a diagnostic puzzle that providers and patients may struggle to solve. In many cases, there isn’t a definitive test that can detect some of these autoimmune diseases.8
Patients frequently find themselves referred from specialist to specialist, undergoing test after test, while answers remain frustratingly out of reach. For instance, the average journey from first symptoms to confirmed diagnosis spans approximately 6 providers and 4 years.9
This often long and uncertain path to diagnosis carries significant implications for the workplace, especially considering the number of people diagnosed with autoimmune diseases is estimated to be rising 3–12% annually, according to the Autoimmune Association.9 These long diagnostic journeys and complex treatment regimens also place a measurable financial burden on both employees and employers. For instance, costs affiliated with nervous system disorders rose 9.2% from 2024 to 2025, with one of the major contributors of this spend being MS, considering costs for treating this condition have increased 60% since 2019, according to the UnitedHealthcare 2026 Health Trends Report.10
Helping employees manage the flare-ups
Employers who work with a carrier equipped to support the full autoimmune journey — from initial diagnosis through ongoing management — may be better positioned to reduce costs, improve outcomes and retain the talent that depends on that support. Here are some strategies employers may want to lean into:
- Enhanced advocacy services – Personalized support and programs designed to help members through their diagnostic journey can lead them to get to answers and into relevant programs and treatments more quickly
- Broad network access – Ensuring employees have access to a wide range of specialists and facilities can be helpful to meet the complex, evolving needs of autoimmune conditions
- Integrated benefits – Coordinating medical benefits across pharmacy, behavioral health and specialty may help address the full scope of these disorders, including mental health impacts and high-cost medications
- Targeted communications – Employers may want to work with their carrier on some proactive outreach designed for women and other higher-risk populations with timely, relevant health information
- Stop loss insurance – Stop-loss insurance provides financial protection against the high-cost, unpredictable claims that autoimmune conditions may produce
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