Medical cannabis reimbursement moves from fringe to workplace benefit

• Key Insight: Discover how a platform integrates cannabis into employer health benefits and clinical workflows.
• Supporting Data: Platform offers up to $175 monthly reimbursements; aims to enroll 10 million patients.
• Forward Look: Insurers and employers are already planning cannabis benefits for next year's programs.
• Source: Bullets generated by AI with editorial review

A new digital health platform wants to make medical cannabis coverage in the workplace mainstream. 

CannaLnx connects patients, physicians, dispensaries and insurers, integrating medical cannabis into the healthcare system. Through a partnership with the American Council of Cannabis Medicine, patients can receive up to $175 each month in reimbursements for cannabis purchases and doctor visits. 

The platform was launched earlier this year, and insurers and employers are already incorporating medical cannabis into next year's benefits structures, says Gennaro Luce, CEO of EM2P2, the software development company that created CannaLnx. 

"Our goal is to bring 10 million new patients to medical cannabis," says Luce. 

CannaLnx is HIPAA compliant, and Luce says the company works with third-party administrators that bundle wellness benefits into health plans underwritten by major insurers such as Aetna and Cigna.

Luce came up with the idea for CannaLnx a few years ago while chatting with a friend who owned several dispensaries in Las Vegas and was having some issues with medical cannabis patients because they didn't know their full health history.

Seeing a need for a HIPPA-compliant system that allows dispensaries to get information from patients' doctors, the seed for CannaLnx was planted. Luce wants to ensure medical providers and the companies selling medical cannabis are aligned with the full health picture of their patients. 

Read more: Will medical marijuana become part of your benefits mix?

"You don't want a guy behind the counter selling a diabetic a month's supply of edibles that would put them in the hospital, if need kill them," Luce says. "So I said, let's guide the industry from chaos to more of a traditional healthcare/pharma model."

Patients who use CannaLnx are asked to share details of their experience such as the dosage size, what the effects were and how the drug was administrated, says Matthew Myro Rothman, chief science officer and vice president of marketing at EM2P2. This data allows patients to make better decisions when adjusting the type of medical cannabis they are taking, instead of relying on trial and error, Rothman says. 

"We really see CannaLnx as an opportunity for the patient to have more precise healthcare for themselves," Rothman says.

Changing views

Attitudes about medical and recreational cannabis have drastically changed over the last several decades. According to a January-February 2025 survey, around nine in 10 U.S. adults believe marijuana should be legal for medical or recreational use. By comparison, that figure hovered around 30% for most of the 2000s and was as low as 16% in the late '80s and early '90s. 

More than 40 states have approved the use of cannabis for medical purposes. Although it remains illegal at the federal level, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in December reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. The order moved cannabis from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug, putting it in the same category as Tylenol, codeine and steroids.

Research has shown medical cannabis has been effective at treating chronic pain and anxiety. A study by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers and the Realm of Caring Foundation found patients also reported better sleep, along with taking fewer prescription medications.

Read more: Managing marijuana use in the workplace: What's at stake for employers

"We're getting more unhealthy, and the rising prices of healthcare are just astronomical," Rothman says. "Why not offer your employees the opportunity to try something beyond just traditional pharmaceuticals and try these alternative therapies that in some cases have been effective for thousands of years in other cultures." 

David Speaker, chief communications officer at EM2P2, pointed out that many people with chronic health conditions who live on a limited income don't have extra money to spend on medical cannabis. Offering reimbursable medical cannabis care as a workplace benefit opens a "pathway to access that wasn't previously available," Speaker says.

"Now they've got a compliant platform that walks them through the whole process and gives them access to reimbursement," Speaker says. "That's very exciting for a lot of people who aren't getting the kind of help they need from the traditional medical community."