When Joyce Dobervich isn't singing jazz in her spare time — sheused to sing at a jazz club in Minneapolis — she's focusing onbenefits. The President of Sage Benefit Group Inc. riffs off onwhat she's learned in the business.

Stay courageous. I got into the business afterspending several years in the biotech/med device arena. As you canimagine, payer relations and reimbursement are a significant factorfor any med device/biotech company's successful market adoption. Atsome point in my career I became curious about the big picture ofhealth care: Who pays for health care, how much does it really costand who gets what? After studying medical savings accounts andconsumer driven responses to health care inflation, I decided tobecome a broker.

Stay calm. My agency came to life in 2006. Weinitially focused on small group and educating brokers on theintricacies of instituting HRAs with HSA-compatible plans. I hadbeen teaching a CE course in Texas up until 2011. When PPACA tookflight, I basically abandoned ship overnight. The flux and costassociated with trying to stay current with the capriciousimplementation of PPACA was too exhausting for me. I'm sure manybrokers have been in this position. I decided to stay calm and seekopportunity. Reinventing Sage Benefit Group hasn't been easy,especially when you decide to move from small group to large group.Today we've secured four “big“ clients. I'm very passionate aboutpreserving the integrity of plan assets in the spirit of ERISA andwas appointed, along with my partner, Ron Dobervich, by the 6thDistrict Court in Michigan to analyze claims data pertaining to asummary judgment against a carrier convicted of selfdealing.