‘Having the ability to access care in a more timely manner, we hope, helps women prioritize their health and themselves,’ says Sun Life’s Erin Crump
Two of the country’s top healthcare providers have joined together to address the menopause dilemma, with a goal to ultimately provide faster access to women who need it.
Sun Life already has a deep partnership with Dialogue, leveraging the digital health provider's clinical expertise and virtual care platform. So when it came time to address the health issue that affects millions of working women, the insurer didn't go looking for a new partner.
"Partnering with Dialogue on menopause care and the menopause care journey was really just a natural expansion of that partnership," noted Erin Crump, vice-president of market development at Sun Life Health. "Embedding menopause care as part of virtual care allowed us to continue to enable timely, evidence-based, and stigma-free support at scale.”
With more than 30 symptoms of menopause, women don't always recognize the root cause of what they're experiencing, which made integration critical, Crump said.
“Women may not always know the root cause of their health concern when they're reaching out for support. It was very important to us for that care not to be fragmented."
That integration piece is central to what Sun Life believes sets this apart from an incremental improvement. Family doctors play a critical role in primary care, but menopause has often had to fit within a model of shorter, episodic appointments where patients try to address a range of issues in limited time.
Crump believes Dialogue's care model is designed to complement that experience with more specialized, ongoing, co-ordinated and faster support. The program notably includes virtual consultations with nurse practitioners or medical doctors, personalized care plans with symptom discovery and management, prescriptions for non-hormonal treatments or menopause hormone therapy, proactive follow-ups, coaching, and educational resources.
While speed of access is integral to the model, the bigger issue Crump highlighted is that women may not connect their symptoms to menopause at all. If a plan member addresses sleep trouble, mood changes, or brain fog, the clinician can identify when those issues point to menopause and steer them into the right program.
She also presents the model as one built around continuity of care, underscoring the menopause care journey lives inside the virtual care platform that members already have, so there's no separate sign-up or unfamiliar portal. A member could begin with a consultation with a menopause-trained nurse practitioner, receive treatment where appropriate, and then be guided to other supports such as counselling, coaching, or nutritional help through the employee assistance program, depending on what else is affecting their health.
"We're not just addressing a certain set of symptoms. It's really evidence-based, whole person care, connecting women to all of the resources that will be helpful to them in one place," Crump said.
Yet, even as menopause gets more attention in workplace conversations, many women are still stuck managing symptoms on their own while balancing work and caregiving, and dealing with delays and unclear routes to appropriate care.
Recent Sun Life findings also emphasize this point. According to the insurer’s recent gender health gap survey, 60 per cent of working women believed that health issues around menstruation, menopause and reproductive health could impact their career advancement but only 37 per cent felt their employer provided adequate resources and supports for their health needs.
Additionally, 10 per cent of working women have left their job or were planning to because of menopausal symptoms.
When Crump and her team decided to launch the product, they were determined not to create another disconnected benefit that employees would have to figure out on their own. Instead, the menopause care offering is directly built into Lumino Health Virtual Care for plan members and dependents who already have access, making it part of a platform many employees and sponsors already know how to use.
Crump argues that because virtual care can resolve a large share of health concerns quickly, menopause support shouldn’t sit off to the side as a separate perk. Instead, it should be integrated into routine care so it feels like a normal part of healthcare, anchored in a whole-person, evidence-based approach.
In that model, when a member raises a concern, the pathway to other is easier to find and access within the same platform, she said.
Crump is quick to note that family doctors aren't being cut out of the picture as they remain central to primary care, but menopause has had to compete for attention within shorter appointments where multiple health concerns get addressed at once. She underscored Dialogue's model is built to work alongside that system, not replace it, by offering specialized and ongoing support.
Crump acknowledged how many women's health needs surface between work, meetings, and caregiving, and that it's common for women to put off care because of time pressures.
"Having the ability to access care in a more timely manner, we hope, helps women prioritize their health and themselves," she said, highlighting the program itself includes virtual consultations with nurse practitioners or doctors, personalized care plans covering symptom discovery and management, and – notably – prescriptions for non-hormonal treatments or menopause hormone therapy when appropriate.
Additionally, proactive follow-ups, coaching, and educational resources are also part of the package.
"All of this support is provided by Dialogue's multidisciplinary team who has received specific additional training relating to menopause and how to support patients on their menopause journey," Crump said.
Both Crump and Sun Life’s long-term is to move menopause out of the shadows and treat it as a workplace health issue that deserves active support rather than silence or improvisation. She wants to see it become more normalized at work, with women getting faster access to care, better tools to manage symptoms on the job, and a clearer understanding of how menopause affects their health. She also ties the issue directly to business outcomes, arguing that menopause often hits during peak career years, so when support is weak, the effects are felt in productivity, retention, and engagement.
“This isn’t just about launching another program. It’s about making support easier to access,” said Crump. “At the moment, women actually need it… Ultimately, it's really about helping women's health, supported and thriving at work, while helping employers create more inclusive, resilient workplaces. When you combine education, leadership, commitment, and easy to navigate practical support ... that’s when awareness turns into real action.”
