Have you ever heard a doctor say, “I really love working with insurance carriers!” … No? Me neither.
As advisors, we pride ourselves on guiding clients through the complexities of health care financing. But let’s be honest: how much do we really understand about the clinical side of health care?
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For years, I thought I was helping employers and employees by building and managing health plans. But in reality, most of my work involved selling plans, cross-selling, up-selling, renewing, and retaining a book of business — without ever questioning whether those plans were actually delivering better health outcomes. I wasn’t fixing health care; I was just making it more efficient to buy.
That changed in 2015, when I walked away from the traditional insurance purchasing model to take on the system itself. I was determined to solve the big problem, but I quickly realized that I could only see part of the picture. If I wanted to design truly effective health plans, I needed to understand how care is actually delivered.
That journey led me to a couple of eye-opening truths:
1. Patients don’t trust the health care system. They feel rushed, unheard, overprescribed, or, worse, too afraid to seek care because of financial uncertainty.
2. Doctors are just as frustrated. The system forces them to prioritize quotas over quality, leaving them burnt out and morally injured from being unable to provide the care they were trained to give.
Take Dr. Jeffrey Gold, for example. Like so many physicians, he was trapped in a production-driven hospital system that stripped away his time, value and autonomy. Instead of accepting the status quo, he walked away, becoming Massachusetts first direct primary care (DPC) physician, where he now delivers unrushed, patient-first care outside the constraints of insurance.
So, here’s the question every advisor should be asking: If the people receiving care and the people delivering it are both unhappy, AND the insurance and care is becoming unaffordable, what exactly are we working so hard to finance?
By integrating clinical expertise into plan designs, advisors can finally move beyond just paying for health care and start actually fixing it. Advisors who understand how health care delivery works can design plans that eliminate waste, improve outcomes, and differentiate them from their competition.
If you want to:- Expand your knowledge beyond financing to see the full picture of health care- Gain a competitive edge by understanding how to build truly effective, independent plans- Become a stronger advocate for your clients and their employees- Learn directly from a physician and patient advocate how to make healthcare work for people, not just payers…
Then you can’t afford to miss this session.
Join me, Dr. Jeffrey Gold, and Joel Daniels at the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo on May 6, 2025, at 11:40 a.m. for our session, "Bridging the Gap Between Healthcare Delivery and Financing." We'll break down how advisors can bridge the gap between health care delivery and financing — and why those who do will set themselves apart as the industry leaders of tomorrow.
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