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Ep #99: Advocacy Helps Members Raise Their “Healthcare IQ” – With Julian Lago

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ShiftShapersCoverArtThis week, we’re talking to our subject matter expert is Julian Lago, co-founder and President of Benezon about how benefits advisors can help employees raise their “Healthcare IQ”. In light of recent reports that as many as three-fourths of employees don’t understand even basic benefits terminology, this offers yet another post-reform opportunity for adding value.

Julian has spent the last five years working to understand how advisors can create a concierge service for employees to help them begin to understand the complexities of their plans and their claims. We also explore how having an advocate can help employees become better consumers. He believes it boils down to three key focus areas: awareness, engagement, and improvement.

In this conversation, we talk about what you need to look for in your practice and how to keep a high touch environment while using technology to take the burden of every-increasing client demands for higher levels of customer services off your support staff. Julian is a Regional Vice President of the National Association of Health Underwriters and spends a great deal of time talking with benefit advisors who share the same common needs: being able to find time to build their practices while delivering world-class customer service without breaking the bank.

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • How you can account for the continuing high level of health care illiteracy.
  • What “Healthcare IQ” means.
  • Whether more transparency will drive greater engagement.
  • Whether “high touch” still matters.
  • Julian’s 3 three key focus areas of advocacy for plan members.
  • What’s the sword and what’s the shield?

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Ep #98: Best Employee Benefits Practices – With Russ Blakely

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At the recent Ascend! conference in Nashville, we caught up with Russ Blakely, President of Russ Blakely & Associates. In the course of our conversation, it became apparent that Russ is doing a lot of the things “the right way,” and we decided to invite him to the program to talk about best practices. Russ is a great example of the things he’s doing in the benefits arena that you can likely learn from and implement in your own practice.

In this wide-ranging discussion, we cover how taking ownership of client problems may lead you to saving money, and when it makes sense to implement onsite clinics and pharmacies and how that may impact the pharma and medical spend. We also talk about how Russ has created a proprietary physician network and what it did for their firm, as well as how they discover “at-risk” employees and what conditions they find most prevalent within a given population.

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

  • What to do when expensive care happens outside a clinic.
  • Why it is important to leverage data and do directed mining.
  • Whether the onsite clinics in the public sector are unusual.
  • What prompted the initial physician recruitment and how that grew into a network.
  • What a “network within a network” is and why it is important.

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Ep #97: A Fun and Informative Approach to Health Care Education – With Al Lewis

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Our special guest on today’s episode of the ShiftShapers podcast is Al Lewis. Al is a serial entrepreneur, author, renaissance man, and the CEO of Quizzify. Quizzify is a health care education app that teaches employees how to buy and use healthcare (literally through fun and games), making them smarter consumers and, over time, spend less money on things that will not benefit them… or may even harm them.

Al joins us to share his interesting journey, which began at Harvard Law School, that led to the creation of Quizzify. In this interesting and engaging conversation, we discuss current health care literacy issues and Al’s unique approach to solving those problems. We cover how Quizzify integrates with companies’ wellness programs and what those employer conversations look like.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • Why Google thinks Al invented Disease Management.
  • How we can increase health care literacy.
  • How to engage employees in learning more.
  • The difference between wellness and wellbeing.
  • Why some CAT scan patients may glow in the dark.

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Ep #96: Is “Transparency” the New “Throw Away” Word? – With Rick Perryman

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At the recent Ascend! conference in Nashville, we caught up with Rick Perryman, National Practice Leader for Trendshift. We discuss a wide range of subjects and spotlight the key data elements and themes that advisors need to be aware of to help clients manage their plans.

Join us to discover why Rick believes that “transparency” is the new “throw away word” in the benefits arena and what “fiduciary level transparency” is.  We also discuss the distinction between data warehousing and “real-time data”. Rick also helps us to understand how some vendors game plans and what plans and plan sponsors can stop those practices that add unnecessary cost and complexity – all in an effort to drive down costs.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • Whether transparency is the new “throw-away word.”
  • What “fiduciary level transparency” is.
  • How to eliminate vendor gamesmanship.
  • What the client conversations look like once savings opportunities are realized.
  • What real time data is and how it differs from data warehousing.
  • Where population health plays into better fiduciary decision making.

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Ep #95: What Benefits Advisors Need to Know about the Presidential Candidates’ Positions on Health Care – With Jessica Waltman

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On this episode of ShiftShapers, we’re pleased to welcome  Jessica Waltman, Principal at Forward Health Consulting, back to the program. At the present time, Jessica is the only guest that comes on quarterly because the regulatory, legislative, and political world of Washington D.C. that she works in changes quite often.

Jessica joins us to share her insights and unparalleled knowledge of what’s going on in Washington this election season. In this engaging conversation, we talk about what Jessica sees in the political future, where the presidential candidates stand on health care, and discuss the best and worst scenarios that benefit advisors might expect. Don’t miss this insightful episode!

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • The Democratic candidates’ positions on health care.
  • Whether the candidates who are Governors more focused on entitlement reform.
  • Where they stand on transparency.
  • Where the Republican candidates stand.
  • Whether the Democrats are actually a better long-term play with respect to employer-based insurance.

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Ep #94: How Extraordinary Communication Leads to Extraordinary Success – With Tom Harte

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On this episode of Shiftshapers, we’re talking to Tom Harte, President of Landmark Benefits who shares some of the tools and techniques his agency uses to drive success with exceptional communication.

As all agencies work to deliver value added services, Tom’s believes that being able to deliver real-time information across a wide range of topics helps to create and deepen client relationships.

Communication leads to extraordinary success in any agency. Don’t miss this opportunity to discover the success strategies of one of the most forward-looking agencies in the country.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • The general challenges that are facing today’s advisors.
  • What Tom has done to create his successful agency.
  • Why communication is the key to success.
  • The role of social media.
  • How to have the content you need to keep clients updated.

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Ep #93: The Future of Telemedicine – With Samir Qamar – Part 2

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Last week we talked to Samir Qamar, M.D., founder and CEO of MedLion and MedWand, about direct pay primary care and how it can be integrated into the solutions advisors offer to clients. On this episode of Shiftshapers Podcast, we continue our conversation with Dr. Qamar as he shares his latest offering that aims to take telemedicine to another level.

We talk about a brand new device that Dr. Qamar is bringing to market – a mouse-sized piece of technology that has the potential to revolutionize patient’s interactions with their physicians. This new technology will not only allow physicians to spend more time but appropriate time with clients. Tune into this insightful exploration of the new technologies that are coming to the market that can help extend our virtual interaction with primary care providers.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • Whether we are going backward to the era of the family doctor.
  • The evolution of today’s telemedicine.
  • What Qamar believes to be the true telemedicine.
  • How accessible the technology is for consumers.
  • Why frequent claims are an insurance killer.
  • The other technology that is coming to market to extend our electronic interaction with providers.

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Ep #92: Is Direct Primary Care Right for Your Clients? – With Samir Qamar – Part 1

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About a year ago on ShiftShapers, we talked about a subject that generated quite a bit of interest among our listeners – the field of direct pay primary care, or direct pay practices. On this episode, we’re honored to be speaking to one of the pioneers and disruptors in direct primary care (DPC), Samir Qamar, M.D. Samir is the founder and CEO of two companies, MedLion and MedWand.

In this first of our two-part interview, we asked Samir to talk about the ins and outs of the direct primary care model and share his unique journey into that field. We also talk about how the direct primary care pioneers were able to get the DPC inserted into the ACA and how DPC realigns incentives. We also explore how DPC might be a good fit for clients struggling with today’s increased personal responsibility amounts, and how they coordinate with and complement high deductible plans.

Next week, we will discuss a brand new device that Dr. Qamar is bringing to market – a mouse-sized piece of technology that has the potential to completely change patient’s interactions with their primary care providers. Don’t miss this first part of our primary care conversation and learn how you can integrate it into the solutions you offer to clients.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • What direct primary care is all about.
  • Samir’s unusual journey to DPC.
  • How a key change in PPACA made a big difference.
  • Whether DPC is an individual play, a group play, or both.
  • Why insurance is unnecessary in primary care.
  • How benefit advisors position this with clients and prospects.

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Ep #91: Using Retirement Plan Data To Target Benefits Prospects – With Mark Smith

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Today on The ShiftShapers Podcast, the founder and CEO of MiEdge, Mark Smith, returns to the show to continue our conversation about Big Data. In this episode, Mark focuses on the use of retirement plan data to create opportunities and deliver value to prospects and clients.

Mark describes new ways that benefit advisors can easily visualize potential prospect relationships from massive amounts of publicly-available data. We also discuss how you can interface your data findings with LinkedIn to help create offensive and defensive strategies that deepen and strengthen existing client relationships.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • The type of information the government collects.
  • How this data can be used to play offense and defense.
  • How large the data set is.
  • How employers react to this type of research.
  • Whether it is easy to see the relationships by just looking at the data.
  • The important data points for advisors.

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Ep #90: An Innovative Agency Model and an Amazing DI Story! – With Jennifer Borislow

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This week, we are pleased to welcome Jennifer Borislow, the founding principal of Borislow Insurance in Massachusetts. She is an author, industry thought leader and past president of the Million Dollar Round Table.

Borislow Insurance’s client-centric approach primarily focuses on employee benefits, using an innovative 7-discipline, 3-year model with specialized teams in each area to ensure the highest standard of client care.

Listen is as Jennifer shares an incredible story of how she learned the value of disability income insurance, and how it changed her practice forever. Don’t miss this insightful episode!

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

  • How of Borislow Insurance came about and how it’s organized.
  • The agency’s unique 7-discipline model.
  • Why Jennifer specialized in disability income.
  • How the agency uses disability income as a differentiator.
  • How Jennifer’s benefits agency positions disability as an integral part of their 3-year approach toward each client firm they serve.
  • Simple, yet powerful tool that has helped Jennifer and her partner, Mark Gaunya, build their essential corporate culture described in their book Inspire to Act.

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