It's a Gravie Thing: Health Benefits You Can Love

The question of how to fund a health plan can be a tricky one for employers. Options have historically been limited, with the only choice being self-funding or fully-funding. And for small and mid-size businesses who couldn’t afford the fully-funded route, that meant they really had no choice at all. But all that’s changing with the advent of level funding, a variation of self-funded health plans in which the employer and insurer share the risk, limiting their financial responsibility through stop-loss coverage. To get more insight on the level-funded model, Gravie Chief Marketing Officer and host Jeff Smokler sat down with Ben Simmons, Gravie’s Chief Strategy Officer, and Maggi Gentle, Vice President of Human Resources at Lumos Pharma. The three discussed how its financial advantages – paired with an emphasis on more flexible plan designs – are changing the benefits game for smaller employers and their employees. Episode Chapters (00:00) Introduction (02:46) What exactly is level funding? (08:15) Is level funding too good to be true? (12:03) How does level funding impact your out-of-pocket max? (16:37) How business size matters for your funding model (19:49) Breaking down the barrier to entry through education (23:26) What industries and states is level funding best for? (26:47) Level funding makes room for plan design innovation (32:44) The future of level funding (37:00) Upcoming innovations from Gravie

Over the past few years, claims for musculoskeletal, or MSK, care have been fast on the rise, climbing up alongside prescription drug costs. But getting MSK care can be a headache in more ways than one. Trying to figure out what type of provider you need to see, keeping appointments straight, and figuring out copays all add to the burden of having a body in pain. Is there a different way forward? We think so.  To chat about new innovations in the MSK space, Gravie Chief Marketing Officer and host Jeff Smokler sat down with Jessica Hennessey, Senior Vice President of Clinical Programs at Gravie, and Evelyn Chojnacki, Senior Director of Health Plan Product Strategy at Sword Health

For many, underwriting is the black box of the health benefits industry. For years, the calculations, data, and risk factors have been a mystery. But why should it stay that way? Gravie is pioneering a new way forward, called Surgical underwriting®. It’s a way for employers and brokers alike to get more insight, and more specificity, from the underwriting process.   In this episode, Gravie Chief Marketing Officer and host Jeff Smokler is joined by one of the architects of surgical underwriting, Jay Sheehy. Jay is Gravie’s Chief Underwriting Officer, with years of industry experience under his belt. To give a look from the consumer side of things, Jalaa Miller, an account executive for employee benefits at IMA Financial Group, joins the show.

Individual HRA, Individual Market Solution, ICHRA - all three names that can make a simple solution sound complicated. At their core, ICHRAs put choices back in the hands of employees, and remove the unpredictable burden of health plan costs from employers. ICHRAs can allow small and midsize businesses to punch above their weight, making a spectrum of coverage options and health benefit plans available to employees. For this episode, Gravie Chief Marketing Officer and host Jeff Smokler sat down with a few guests to get the full range of perspectives on ICHRA. Brian Blase, President of Paragon Health Institute, was one of the architects behind ICHRA’s policy rollout in. Cory Wiskow, President of Wealshire, talks about the benefits from an employer point of view, highlighting the benefits ICHRAs offer to both businesses and employees. Eric Mann, Gravie’s VP of Sales, offers insights on how ICHRA’s have impacted the health benefit market thus far, and where he sees it all headed.

The plight of the uninsured is well documented, but what is less discussed is how those who have health benefits face financial burden due to limits in their coverage. Access to affordable care is an increasing burden for eligible employees, and too many health plans leave members with significant out-of-pocket costs that leave them as bad off as if they didn’t have coverage at all. Aja Evans, LMHC and financial therapist, and Laura Cave, Chief Marketing Officer of Paytient, join Gravie Chief Marketing Officer and host Jeff Smokler for a conversation that takes a hard look at the financial difficulties facing the millions of insured Americans who still can’t afford medical care, and what innovative health benefits plans can do about it.

Health benefits. They’re a headache, whether you’re an employer or an employee. Out of pocket costs, deductibles, co-pays - each another reason to avoid going to the doctor. But why does it have to be this way? At Gravie, we don’t think it does. We’re reimagining the employer-sponsored health benefits market, showing how small and midsize businesses can punch above their weight with benefits plans employees will want to use. On It’s a Gravie Thing, we’ll talk to experts in their field about ICHRAs, underwriting, mental health, and more. We’ll explore existing and upcoming innovations in the health benefits space, and how those innovations are improving the ways small and midsize businesses in particular provide affordable healthcare coverage to their employees.