Where Your Healthcare Dollars Go … And How to Get A Few Back
If you want to control your company’s healthcare costs, you need to know where the money is actually going. It’s not just medical care. Administrative overhead and carrier margins quietly consume a meaningful share of every premium dollar. However, once you see the breakdown, you can start redirecting spend toward actions that improve outcomes. The […]
Why ESOPs Thrive in Direct Partnership Health Plans
Peanut butter and jelly. Romeo and Juliet. ESOPs and direct partnership health plans. Some things just belong together. Companies that offer Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) know the value of collaboration. When employees gain ownership of company shares, they also gain a vested interest in the long-term prosperity of the company, contributing to better engagement, […]
Employee Wellbeing: What It Is and Why It Matters
HR professionals love to talk about employee wellbeing. People on the outside may wonder what the heck they’re going on about and whether it actually matters. The reality is that, yes, employee wellbeing is a real concern, and it can actually affect your company’s bottom line. Defining Employee Wellbeing “Employee wellbeing” can seem like a […]
How Can Free Babies Change Your Health Plan?
People who want to have a baby in the U.S. can expect to cough up around $2,743. That’s the average out-of-pocket expenses for women enrolled in an employer health plan, according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. For many working-class families, that’s too much, especially when adding in all the diapers, baby clothes, car seats […]
Are You Guilty of Health Plan Spreadshitting?
You have five health plan options, all with double-digit premium increases, high deductibles, and exorbitant out-of-pocket costs for members. You need to figure out which one sucks the least. So what do you do? You create a fancy spreadsheet that details a side-by-side comparison. There’s nothing wrong with a careful analysis of your options. In […]
Why It’s Good to Be the Payer: The Importance of Holding the Keys to Your Health Plan
In health insurance, the payer is the organization responsible for paying claims. In a fully funded plan, the health insurance carrier is the payer. In a self-funded plan, the employer is the payer. While being the payer may seem like a bad thing, it’s actually a position of power. Whoever pays the claims is in […]
The Hidden Cost of Bad Benefits
What Would $500,000 Mean for Your Company? Many employers don’t realize how much bad benefits quietly drain from their business. When Wada Farms switched to a direct health plan, the company saved nearly $500,000 over four years. For a family-owned business, this savings was huge. It represented meaningful capital that could be reinvested into operations, […]
Ditch the Carrier. Own the Benefit Plan.
How Community Health Models Put Employers In Control If you want to provide health insurance for your employees, you need to work with an insurance carrier, or a broker who is appointed through an insurance carrier, right? Wrong! There’s actually an alternative. A community health plan connects employers and their teams with hospitals and providers […]
Direct Contracting Done Right: How Employers & Hospitals Win Together
What if employers and hospitals stopped negotiating against each other? In this episode of the Dysrupt Healthcare Podcast, Lester J. Morales sits down with Doug Hetherington, founder of Health to Business, to talk about a different approach to healthcare purchasing one rooted in transparency, partnership, and long-term alignment. This isn’t about fighting the system. It’s […]
2026 Outlook: Why Employers Settle for the Health Plan that Sucks the Least
If your company’s last employee benefits renewal involved choosing the option that sucks the least, you’re not alone. While the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker reports that small group insurers proposed an average premium increase of 11% for the 2026 plan year, many employers experienced increases that were much steeper than that. Even if you were […]