Heart Disease Is A Known Cost Driver. The Risk Is Waiting To Act.

Key Takeaways

• 92% of benefit leaders say heart disease costs are a top concern. Only 29% prioritize prevention. That gap represents a real, controllable opportunity.
  
  
• Prevention has become measurable, and that makes heart health something leaders can actively manage year over year.
  
  
• The employers getting ahead in 2026 are focusing on a few measurable levers—especially medication adherence and blood pressure control—and they’re seeing movement within a planning cycle.

Heart disease isn’t just a top cost driver. It’s also one of the most preventable conditions employers face. And that’s what makes this moment so important.

You see the impact every year in your claims data. Heart disease shows up consistently as one of the most persistent and expensive categories to manage. What’s harder to understand is why, despite that visibility, prevention doesn’t always rise to the level of action.

That question is at the heart of our 2026 Heart Health Matters Report.

When we asked benefit leaders what they’re seeing, the answers were clear. Heart disease is widely recognized as a cost concern, yet prevention still struggles to rise to the top of the priority list.

That gap shows up clearly in this year’s findings:

And it goes deeper than prioritization. Only about one-third of leaders say they feel prepared to manage rising cardiovascular claims in 2026.

Every planning cycle brings pressure. Specialty drugs. MSK. Oncology. Mental health. Each category comes with urgency and visibility, so the impact feels immediate.

Heart health is different.

Cardiovascular risk builds quietly. High blood pressure and cholesterol rarely interrupt someone’s day. And when they do, the costs show up all at once: emergency department visits, hospitalizations, strokes, heart attacks.

The Action Gap Isn’t About Caring. It’s About Seeing Progress.

For years, prevention felt hard to justify because success often looked invisible.

There’s no ER visit, hospitalization, or catastrophic claim. So when leadership asks, “What did we get for this investment?” it’s hard to say, “Nothing happened.” Even if that’s exactly the point.

That’s why this hasn’t been an awareness problem. It’s been a measurement problem.

Now, we can track leading indicators like medication adherence and blood pressure control. We can compare similar populations over time and isolate impact, and that changes the conversation.

Employers are ready for that shift. In our survey, 93% of benefit leaders said their organizations are prepared to adopt AI-enabled digital health tools, as long as they provide privacy, clinical credibility, and measurable outcomes.

Prevalence Is The Challenge. It’s Also The Opportunity.

According to the CDC, 62% of U.S. adults have high blood pressure or high cholesterol, two of the most common risk factors for heart disease. 

That’s not a small, high-risk subset. That’s most of your workforce. And for those individuals, average annual medical costs are roughly $9,300 per person. When risk touches most of your population, even modest improvement has meaningful impact. 

The good news is that up to 80% of heart attacks and strokes are preventable with earlier intervention and consistent management. 

What Leading Employers Are Doing Differently

The employers who are getting ahead have stopped asking “How do we add more programs?” and started asking “What can we measure and improve this year?”

They are:

• Treating heart health as a core cost strategy
• Starting with outcomes, then integrating solutions around them
• Prioritizing levers that move within 6–12 months
• Using recent claims trends as a catalyst to act now

If you want a starting point, identify one or two levers that directly influence avoidable cost, and commit to measuring them.

Prevention Works When It’s Specific

To earn sustained investment, it has to behave like a business case. That means clear metrics, comparable populations, and credible evaluation.

In heart health, two anchors matter most:

• Medication adherence
• Blood pressure and cholesterol control

When prevention is framed this way, it becomes tangible.

Medication Adherence Is the Most Overlooked Cost Lever

Nearly 44% of adults treated for high blood pressure don’t take medications as prescribed. That’s associated with $3,900 per person per year in avoidable healthcare costs, largely driven by preventable hospitalizations and ER visits.

This isn’t about people not caring. They don’t take their medications because they forget, they don’t like the side effects, they don’t see evidence that it’s working—or all three. 

I’ve seen it at home. My husband takes one medication every night, and he’ll often take it and then ask me a minute later, “Did I take my medication tonight?” 

From an employer’s perspective, this makes adherence less of a clinical nuance and more of an operational opportunity. When daily behaviors are supported consistently, risk improves and utilization shifts.

Broad Programs Raise Awareness. Focused Solutions Drive Outcomes. 

Simplification matters. I understand the appeal of reducing vendor count, but simplicity alone doesn’t improve cardiovascular outcomes.

Heart health is specific. It requires sustained focus on a small set of behaviors.

When prevention efforts stretch across too many conditions at once, intensity can drop. The leaders I speak with are reversing the sequence. They start with measurable outcomes and then determine how to integrate those solutions effectively.

In a cost-constrained environment, the smartest strategy is the one that produces measurable results.

Anchor On What You Can Validate

Our Heart Health Matters survey found that 84% of benefit leaders believe indirect costs exceed direct cardiovascular claims costs.

But indirect costs are hard to quantify precisely. If you want credibility with finance, you anchor your strategy in claims, utilization, and validated risk control.

Use indirect impact as a signal and build your case on what can be measured.

A Conversation You Can Have This Week

If you’re reassessing 2026 priorities, here are four practical questions to bring into your next meeting:

• Can we measure change in adherence and risk control within 6–12 months?
• Can we validate outcomes against a comparable population?
• Will this reduce avoidable ER and inpatient utilization?
• Can we implement this without adding unnecessary complexity?

If the answer is yes, you’re looking at a controllable opportunity. If the answer is unclear, that’s where to focus next.

A Clear Path Forward

Heart disease remains one of the most expensive conditions employers face. It’s also among the most preventable.

Treating it that way changes the math.

When prevention is measured and managed, improvement becomes visible—and defensible. That’s why heart health matters so much right now. Not because it’s new, but because it’s finally actionable at scale.

The Heart Health Matters findings make one thing clear: the gap between awareness and action is closing, and employers who move now are positioning themselves to lead.

Get your copy to explore the full findings and see how employers are turning heart health into a clear, measurable strategy.