Minimizing regret: a high-tech, human touch strategy is key to ensuring confident healthcare decisions

Good health is essential. It’s the foundation for everything else in life and key to being able to pursue a fulfilling career, engage in hobbies, foster relationships and build a family, if so desired. It comes as no surprise that taking care of their health and that of their loved ones is paramount for most employees.

Providing the workforce with health benefits, paired with helpful tools and decision-support is an employer’s greatest calling. Health insurance was first offered as an employee benefit in the late 19^th century, but the practice didn’t become commonplace until World War II, when wartime economic policies, such as wage controls, led employers to offer health benefits to attract workers. The Internal Revenue Code of 1954 clarified the tax-exempt status of employer-sponsored coverage, further boosting its adoption.

Even as healthcare costs continue rising—at a rate estimated to be 9% or more—employers remain steadfast in their commitment to provide this essential benefit. No matter how comprehensive the coverage, however, employees often end up regretting the healthcare decisions they make. Considering the potentially catastrophic results of making ill-advised choices, that can be a bitter pill to swallow indeed.

Rampant regret

According to the 2025 Alight Employee Mindset Study, nearly two-thirds (63%) of workers have regretted a healthcare decision in the last 12 months, most often because they rushed into treatment without asking the right questions, took advice from someone who was not a healthcare professional or didn’t get a second opinion. Interestingly, men are more likely to express a regret than women (65% vs. 58%), as are higher-paid individuals.

Notably, parents (61%) and caregivers (76%) are far more likely to regret a healthcare decision than non-parents or caregivers (47%). While Mindset data doesn’t delve into why this is the case, it’s relatively easy to deduce. These individuals are responsible not only for themselves, but also for the children and/or adults in their care, so they probably make more healthcare decisions in a month than most people make in a year. The likelihood of regretting one (or more) is higher because of the sheer volume of decisions being made.

Not surprisingly, young workers are far more likely to express regret over healthcare decisions than their older colleagues—65% of Gen Z and Millennials, compared to 51% of Gen X and 34% of Boomers. Likewise, fewer than half of Gen Z workers feel confident with their most recent medical plan elections. This is likely because they just recently came off their parents’ health insurance and have little, if any, experience selecting health coverage. Across generations, just 66% of employees feel confident about their most recent health plan elections. This has led to an extremely concerning trend that we see emerging in our Alight book of business, as employees making $60K or less are increasingly not enrolling in a medical plan at all and consequently not seeking care when needed.

Empowering decisions

Health-related decisions can be extraordinarily difficult—not to mention stressful. The healthcare landscape is complex and confusing, leaving employees feeling like selecting a health plan, provider or treatment is akin to playing “pin the tail on the donkey.” They close their eyes and take a stab in the dark, hoping to hit the most favorable target. Unlike the classic children’s game, however, the consequences of an ill-advised healthcare decision are often far more serious than not taking home a party favor. It can quite literally be life and death—or in some cases, financial ruin. What’s more, productivity takes a hit at work and at home, as performance and engagement suffer when someone is distracted by the potentially negative effects of the healthcare decisions they’ve made.

Each year, as we embark on the Mindset Study, we pay special attention to the “fully supported employee”—those with comprehensive, customized and accessible benefits and resources. About 10% of respondents to this year’s survey fall into this category. These people have medical insurance through their employer or their spouse’s employer, along with access to personalized medical or financial support and to all their health, retirement and wellbeing benefits through a single, centralized platform.

The impact of a high-tech, human touch benefits strategy is powerful. Compared to the rest of the employee population, fully supported workers are far more likely to say they have not regretted a healthcare decision. Just 47% report regretting a decision, compared to 63% of employees overall. What’s more, fully supported employees demonstrate significantly higher engagement, with 83% saying they are always or almost always productive at work, compared to 70% of their less supported counterparts.

Clearly, it’s in an employer’s best interest to provide comprehensive healthcare navigation support to help workers overcome the complexity of the system and guide them in making decisions on everything from choosing a plan and selecting a provider to evaluating treatment plans and resolving billing conflicts. Pairing real human support with generative AI tools alleviates the anxiety around healthcare decisions and empowers workers to take charge of their own wellbeing and live their best lives at home—and at work.