How to turn healthcare avoiders into health advocates

Read Time

5 Minutes

Written by

Team Curative

Featured Insights by

Lillian Holloway, MD, FAAFP

Published

Jun 4, 2026

33.3% of people don’t get medical care because they have negative feelings about it, whether it’s because of doctors, health care organizations, or their own emotional reasons. 12.2% don’t think they need to get care, with 4% saying they think their outlook will get better over time.

And of course, traditional barriers to medical care (like costs) keep 58.4% of people from taking charge of their health.

But what if there was a way to transform even the most resistant employees into active health care participants?

No mandates, incentives, or penalties.

Just personal goals.

Curative’s Medical Director, Dr. Lillian Holloway, MD, FAAFP has worked across all different aspects of health care as both a family medicine doctor and health equity expert.

What she’s learned: when health care providers let employees set their own health goals — even if it's just one cholesterol test per year — engagement rates soar. Employees become their own best health advocates, ultimately reducing claims costs and improving productivity.

What holds your employees back (and how to unblock them)

You might notice that even though you offer great health benefits, around 30-40% of your employees aren’t going to the doctor.

Dr. Holloway pinpoints the problem: "It is hard to sell someone on paying — even with insurance — a $40 copay when $40 is a big portion of their check."

And the issue runs deeper than cost.

In her time at Curative, she’s met members who haven’t been to the doctor for decades.

They’re missing more than preventive screenings: they’re missing early diagnosis of conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Delayed diagnoses lead to more expensive claims, too. What could’ve been a primary care visit gets replaced with an ER visit. And premiums go up, too.

Dr. Holloway's goal is to challenge traditional wellness program design and get workers involved. Instead of pushing employees toward predetermined health goals, she asks: "What are your goals?” That shift changes the entire dynamic, because people resist mandates but will champion their own decisions. That also makes Curative into a support system, not a compliance officer.

With Dr. Holloway’s approach, ANY level of engagement is success.

How to build a better employee health care approach

Here’s her tried-and-true method.

Step 1: Build health assessments around trust

Dr. Holloway starts off by asking employees: "Do you have someone you can trust? When something goes wrong, do you have a trusted medical professional or a clinic?"

Pick a health insurance provider whose onboarding helps identify any trust gaps that the employee has. At Curative, Care Navigators spend the first 10 minutes understanding an employee's health care relationship, and write down any trust barriers to care (alongside health data and risks).

Step 2: Offer options as choices, not mandates

As an employer, you should count ANY choice as a participation success. Even the least-engaged (but still-engaged) employee will make more informed health care decisions, which is better for their outcomes (and yours, too).

So, engagement-wise, what is your employee willing to do for their care? For example, Dr. Holloway explained, someone might say “the bandwidth I have right now — what I can commit to — is getting tested for diabetes and cholesterol. That's it. That's all I can do.”

Curative can work with that. Based on the trust assessment, Care Navigators can present a variety of options to support better health. From there, an employee’s health care engagement can be thought of in terms of goal achievement, not predetermined metrics.

Step 3: Let employees control their engagement

While Dr. Holloway recommends follow-ups based on the patient’s health, she empowers them to choose their own schedule. She might say, "I'd like to see you within the next three months to review your blood pressure. What would you like to discuss next time we meet, and when would that work best for you?”

That guides their journey, but still lets them decide.

Some employees want to go to the doctor every week. Some cadences are annual. When employees can set their own follow-up schedule, they’re way more likely to show up instead of ignoring appointments or canceling them later.

It removes the feeling of a penalty, too. Once employees are asking to meet more, that’s clear engagement.

Step 4: Offer non-clinical help

One of the biggest hurdles to health care engagement is getting information and resources — Google can’t do what a Care Navigator can (and WebMD can take people in the wrong direction). And with a Care Navigator, your employees will feel supported and guided, with a more personal touch than they’d get anywhere else.

Care Navigators handle logistics so employees don't get lost trying to figure things out, addressing the smaller health questions, like “How do I get this done?” When employees can call them up and get that immediate help, it’s a huge game-changer.

Other ways to support employees include portal messaging so they can report progress on their own terms and easy access to resources (substance abuse, mental health) so employees can find them when they might need them most.

Transforming employees from benefits avoiders to health owners

When employees feel like they have more power and agency over their health, they’re more willing to take an active role.

Dr. Holloway saw one employee who “didn’t like doctors” become more engaged when the conversation was based on her personal metrics. She built a spreadsheet and self-reported her blood pressure, sugar levels, weight, and more. By addressing her health the way she wanted to through careful lifestyle changes, she was able to lower her blood pressure and her cholesterol.

Another employee went to three visits, but wasn’t engaged during them. However, once they’d built trust, feeling unpressured, they revealed they were a heavy drinker. Curative was able to connect them with a covered substance abuse treatment and get ahead of future diagnoses.

A third employee decided they’d rather not know if they had cancer. But after four months of refusing a screening (with a provider that respected his wishes), he decided to go ahead with one. They found a mass that needed treatment — and the early detection saved hundreds of thousands in later-stage care costs.

When health care becomes a conversation instead of a checklist, employees transform from passive recipients into active participants. They’re empowered to drive better outcomes for themselves, which is better for their employers. The result isn't just better health across the workplace — it's sustainable, cost-effective care that works because people actually want to engage with it.