Group Benefits

Within a generation, it will affect one in 68 workers. It usually appears between the ages of twenty-five and fifty. It can start in your wrists, your hips, your feet, your legs, or your hands. Rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune disease, is the leading cause of disability in Canada. Catherine Hofstetter has fought it for more than twenty years.

Be inspired. Watch the story of this brave woman and her caring medical team in the third video in our ‘Changing Drug Landscape’ series:

The Empire Life Special Authorization program helps business owners’ manage both costs and access so their drug plans are sustainable. Under this program, employees must acquire approval for certain high cost drugs (such as biologics) before they will be covered. That’s because in many cases—rheumatoid arthritis being one—about half of all patients will respond well to traditional drug therapies.

Catherine Hofstetter was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis twenty years ago. As the President of a small business begun by her father in the 1950’s, she doesn’t have a drug plan. And yet, she relies on expensive medications to get up every morning and go to work—just as Catherine’s employees rely on her to keep the business running. For Catherine, the drugs that are most beneficial are biologics.

Watch our video, The Human Face—and the Cost—of Biologics, in which we focus on the drugs that help keep Catherine Hofstetter at work:

The Empire Life Insurance Company (Empire Life) today introduced new healthcare pooling arrangements to protect group benefit customers who face high cost claims from prescription drugs and medical services. Watch our short video to learn more.