Collective Health

A 28-year-old recently went viral for saving $22,000 on a $24,000 hospital bill simply because he was uninsured. It's a striking story. But the more important question it raises is: why does the system make opting out feel like the rational choice? Two of our leaders weighed in with Newsweek. Our CRO Kaushik Bhaumik, PhD spoke to the support gap driving people's frustration: the coverage is there on paper, but the guidance to actually use it isn't. Members are left navigating confusing bills, scattered vendors, and care decisions on their own, and that erodes trust over time. Ali Diab, our co-founder and CEO, brought it closer to home with a personal story. Before a routine knee surgery, he was quoted $3,400 for a brace that retailed on Amazon for $125. He was told he couldn't bring his own because of contracted rates, effectively showcasing just how disconnected healthcare prices can be from reality. Together, Kaushik and Ali's perspectives point to the same root problem: a system built around complexity, not people. It's a problem that demands better. That's what drives the work we do at Collective Health, building toward benefits that give people the clarity and confidence to navigate their coverage, and give employers the transparency and control to build plans their people can actually count on. 📰 Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/g_V9uVNX

Your health plan is your second-biggest cost after payroll — and with medical costs trending 7–10% this year, it's one of the fastest rising. But it rarely gets the same finance-level scrutiny as other line items at that scale, and that's where leverage tends to hide. A few places for benefits and finance leaders to start looking: → Vendor fee structures. If a vendor earns a percentage of your spend, they make more when your costs go up. That's worth knowing before you assume your incentives are aligned. → Site of care. The same procedure at a hospital outpatient department versus an independent site can mean a dramatically different bill with the same clinical outcome. → Stop-loss. Nearly half of plan sponsors had at least one claim exceed $1 million in the last two years. If your plan documents have gaps, your stop-loss carrier may not reimburse, and that can become a balance sheet problem. More on these and seven other places to find leverage in your health plan: https://lnkd.in/gVUi7nGF #EmployerHealthBenefits #CFO #SelfFunded #BenefitsStrategy

Welcome to Collective Health, Ted Holden, MHP! We're thrilled to have you on board and look forward to the impact you'll make helping our clients and their people navigate healthcare with greater clarity and confidence.

Juneteenth is a day worth pausing for. It marks a moment of freedom long delayed — and it asks all of us to sit with both the progress that's been made and the distance still to go. In healthcare, that distance is something we think about and work on every day. Wishing a meaningful Juneteenth to all. ❤️

Healthcare costs keep rising. The industry is staring down 7–10% trend this year. But just because it's an average doesn't mean you have to accept it. Companies with Collective Health averaged 3.7% medical cost trend over three years — and 6.5% medical + Rx. Both below the industry benchmark. Swipe to see what's driving it, and what's possible when plan administration, cost management, and member experience work together. #SelfFundedEmployers #BenefitsLeaders, what's your healthcare cost trend? Let's talk. ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gf_Ej4AR

📌 ICYMI: Gallagher's Dr. Christine Mohrhaus Hale, MD, MBA joined The Benefits Playbook to rethink how employers handle their most expensive claims. Her reframe: the real cost challenge has shifted from the one-time lightning-strike claim to the rising tide of ongoing, chronic cases the insurance model was never built to fund — and getting the diagnosis right is the highest-leverage move a plan can make for a member. Grateful to Dr. Hale for the candor and the conversation. If it slipped past your feed, it's worth tuning in. 💻 Watch: https://lnkd.in/gU5SjZcg 🎧 Listen: https://lnkd.in/gT-SRKaX

📣 We're excited to welcome Aligned Marketplace to the Collective Health partner ecosystem. Aligned Marketplace brings together a curated network of independent advanced primary care providers — including Marathon Health, Aledade, Inc., and Galileo — under one roof, giving employees access to coordinated, proactive care that addresses health issues before they become costly ones. The result: fewer ER visits, lower medical and Rx spend, and better outcomes as engagement grows. 👉 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/dWbRtiMa

MSK is one of the top cost drivers for self-funded employers — and one of the hardest categories to prove ROI on. Most benefits leaders are working with incomplete data. Hinge Health just published the largest ROI study ever done in digital MSK: 200,000+ members, nearly 1,000 employers, five years of claims data. The result is a 3.0x ROI and $2,941 saved per member per year, driven largely by members avoiding surgery altogether — 69% fewer procedures compared to a matched control group. That's exactly the kind of validated, measurable impact our Premier Partner Program™ is built around, and Hinge Health is part of this select group of digital health solutions with a track record of delivering results. Because Collective Health is both a TPA and curator of digital health partners, we can tie together utilization, engagement, and claims data to give employers a complete picture of what's actually working. 🔗 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gxA2KR4C P.S. We're proud to support our partners — Tyler Young and Cathy Fladeland are at Hinge Health's Annual Movement Conference in Chicago this week. If you're in the Windy City for #Movement2026, come find us on the floor! 💪💚

🔎 The most expensive claim on your plan probably isn't the one you're bracing for. In the latest episode of The Benefits Playbook, host Kirk McConnell sits down with Christine Mohrhaus Hale, MD, MBA, Chief Medical Officer, US Benefits at Gallagher, to rethink how employers should treat their most expensive claims. At Gallagher, one of the world's largest insurance brokerage, risk management, and consulting firms, Dr. Hale builds the clinical strategy behind managing complex, high-cost claims. Three key takeaways for the #EmployeeBenefitsConsultants advising on these plans: 🔑 The threat isn't the lightning strike — it's the rising tide. The dramatic gene-therapy or NICU claim is usually something a client has insured against. The harder conversation is the chronic, ongoing case — an $800,000-a-year regimen that never ends — that stop-loss was never built to absorb. Helping clients tell those two risks apart is where the advice earns its keep. 🔑 Diagnostic accuracy is a cost-containment strategy, not just a clinical one. Dr. Hale describes a member kept on a $300,000-a-year MS drug who didn't have MS. For consultants, guiding clients toward second opinions and complex-case review is one of the clearest levers to put on the table — better care and lower spend at the same time. 🔑 Integrated, member-level data is now the baseline of good advice. Dr. Hale points to the kind of scenario it allows: a plan paying $2.1M for a gene therapy while still filling a $600,000 maintenance drug no one stopped. Neither the medical nor the pharmacy side is at fault — they just can't see each other. That blind spot stays hidden until a consultant insists the two get connected. 🎧 Tune in to the full episode on: YouTube: https://lnkd.in/gzcFzTuy Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gT-SRKaX Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gQD99sgW The Collective Health website: https://lnkd.in/gVkeV4An

Melinda French Gates put a number to what many women already know: #menopause costs U.S. employers $26 billion a year in medical expenses and lost productivity. The bigger cost? Doing nothing. #WomensHealth partners like Progyny, Inc., Midi Health, Carrot, Visana Health, and Ovia Health by Labcorp support employees across fertility, family building, midlife care, and beyond — menopause included. They're part of The Partner Collective®, Collective Health's 200+ partner ecosystem where employers can mix and match high-quality solutions within one connected member experience. The care gap is real. Closing it takes a continuum of care — from fertility to family building to midlife and beyond. Explore it at The Partner Collective®: https://lnkd.in/gjx-sbzt https://lnkd.in/eWmDUuzm