Episode 14: Better Care, Point Solutions & Smarter Benefits with Brooks Deibele

Join us for another episode of Bending the Trend hosted by Norm Volsky, where we sit down with Brooks Deibele, EVP at Holmes Murphy, to discuss how employers can rethink digital health solutions, point solutions, and virtual primary care to create smarter, more cost effective healthcare strategies.

In this episode, Brooks shares actionable insights on what actually drives ROI in employee health programs and why employers should expect measurable outcomes from their healthcare investments. From virtual primary care and DPC models to innovative point solutions like Hinge Health and Galileo, this conversation dives into the real strategies helping employers reduce unnecessary costs while improving the member experience.

We also explore the importance of early detection, employee engagement, and giving members flexible healthcare options that are simple and easy to use. Brooks explains why controlling referrals is one of the biggest opportunities in healthcare cost management and how preventative care models are reshaping the future of employer sponsored healthcare.

“ROI should be at least two to one.”

Brooks shares some of the solutions and strategies helping employers move the needle today:

-Hinge Health
-Galileo
-Virtual Primary Care
-Direct Primary Care (DPC)
-Early Detection & Intervention Strategies

Brooks Deibele works closely with employers to build innovative healthcare strategies focused on improving outcomes, increasing engagement, and controlling long term healthcare costs.

📊 ROI Expectations: Why healthcare programs should deliver measurable value
🩺 Virtual Primary Care: How accessible care can lower long term costs
💡 Point Solutions: What separates effective vendors from ineffective ones
🎯 Cost Control: Why referral management matters more than most employers realize
🚀 Healthcare Innovation: How employers are modernizing benefits strategies

Like, comment, and subscribe for more conversations on the future of employer healthcare and benefits innovation!

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We have to find real solutions, and this is bending the trend. Hello, welcome back to Bending the Trend with your host, Norm Bolski. And today we are thrilled to be joined by Brooks Dybel. Brooks, welcome to the pod. Thanks, Norm. Great to be here. Awesome. And for all of our viewers and listeners that are not as familiar with Brooks, he is the EVP and runs all employee benefits over at Holmes Murphy. So we're really excited to have you and thanks for joining.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Yeah, again, thanks for having me, Norm.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Just want you to know the gloves are to fight rising healthcare costs, which I know we're on the same side of. So we're working together, fighting on the same team. So, Brooks, we'll jump right into it. You and Holmes Murphy have great clients all over the country. What are some digital health solutions that you have launched with some of your nicest, you know, most strategic clients that you've really been impressed by and would recommend to others in the space?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, Norm. Love it. Love that the gloves are on. And yeah, you know, I'll start up by saying so, first of all, I, you know, I'm a firm believer there is no single vendor that's a fit for all or even most employers. You really gotta understand by really understanding the data, organizational culture, goals of the organization, leadership team, core values, et cetera. Um, and then of course, you know, the size and the funding of the organization is gonna play a significant part in that as well. That said, I mean, who you pick for your partners is critically important, and you know, the contracts that you have with them are are really equally as important. And you know, you're always starting out with the TPA and the PBM as really kind of the big rocks. But for this purpose, I think what I'll focus on is maybe some point solutions that I see that are falling into areas that are at really at the top of the list for many employers. And you you probably hear a lot about direct primary care and and different opportunities in that in that particular space. And we're we're traditionally, you know, with the vast majority of our clients, we're we're working with them to ensure that they have a strategy in that particular space. And a lot of it is really driven by local dynamics and the footprint of the client and and all of that. But I'll maybe focus on a couple that you know we have layered on consistently with a lot of our multi-state employers in that virtual space that we're getting really good satisfaction from, and we feel like reasonable ROIs as well. We've we have many clients and have had good experience with both Teledoc and Galileo's virtual primary care programs. Fantastic. Yeah. So that's really in kind of that virtual primary care space. You know, we think a strategy there obviously makes a lot of sense. You know, and then you got the big areas of spend like musculoskeletal and cancer care as well. We've long been fans of it, have many clients that have leveraged hinge health for MSK. And, you know, I'll say, I mean, the savings, they're real in that space when the adoption is strong. And you know, the vendor hinge, as an example, or other vendors in this space replace traditional care in that space, not layer on top of it. Um, so you know, hinge has been one that we've had good success with, both from a member experience standpoint and from an ROI perspective as well. On the cancer side of things, I mean, almost every time you're sitting down doing a claims review with a client, and you know, you know, cancer is is emerging as a bigger and bigger area of spend, and it's an area that our clients really want to solve for. And you know, we've had good success from an experience and from a results standpoint with color in this particular space as as well. I love it. Yeah, and maybe the last one I'd touch on is weight loss. Obesity continues to be an area of concern and interest for our clients as well. And there are a lot of solutions that are merging in this space, the Virtus of the World, et cetera. We've seen a lot of interest and have had a lot of good discussion, dialogue with our clients, and have several moving forward with Ansara, who is a new player in this space as well, really focusing on the obesity crisis that we have across our country.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Very cool. Well, I'm glad the first thing you mentioned was DPC, because I'm a huge believer in if you can't control the referral, you can't control cost. And by having a DPC that isn't affiliated with a large health system, they have no incentive to refer to certain departments that just happen to be high margin of that health system if they have no affiliation and they have no conflict of interest there. So I think like any employer strategy that doesn't have DPC as kind of like table stakes, you're also almost missing the mark. And they can kind of be the point guard and point you to other benefits within your health plan that are high value, low cost, and that also like hit the clinical quality marks to be able to, you know, not only save money for the employer, but I think, you know, employees, like you want them to not have to go out of pocket. So their hard-earned dollars are able to be spent on things that they actually get value out of and isn't just a drain, you know, on their paycheck. So I really, really love that. Walk me through any like data or any success stories with these vendors where you're like, hey, it's not just like a nice to have, and you know, yeah, employees like it, but like any statistics or improvements in either clinical quality outcomes or cost that you're seeing as like the result of implementing these programs.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Yeah, I mean, so I'd say that gone are the days of just putting in programs because they sound great. Um, you know, in in every case now, employers want to know and feel confident that there's gonna be an ROI. And it always starts with, you know, at a bare minimum, having a one-to-one ROI. You know, we're talking about a lot of new vendors that have emerged in this space, some of which have a much longer track record than others. Um, you know, in and I would say the member experience and the testimonials you get are extremely important. But I mean, we're evaluating vendors, you know, we want to see at least a two to one ROI. And in many cases, particularly for, you know, if you're looking at like the virtual primary care space, in the year one, it may be a one-to-one ROI, but we would expect and what we see in kind of years two through four, more of anywhere from a two to four times ROI. You know, similar RI.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

It really compounds over time because if you're having a strong DPC strategy and you're having more people participate in DPC, that primary care physician is telling them, here's your risks, here's some behavior change I'd like to see. If that meeting never happens, you know, nothing downstream gets improved. So that totally makes sense. That like DPC is such a strong investment because what you prevent today, you see the benefits of you know, years and years later, and it compounds over time.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

I like that. Um, any other success stories with either Hinge or Ansara or uh you know any of the other vendors you know that you mentioned that are more point solution as opposed to DPC?

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah, Ansara's newer, so I think you know time will tell in that particular case. But if we look at like in the instance of color or hinge in those scenarios, I mean these are areas of significant concern for our clients and significant opportunity as as well. And we're routinely seeing that we're you know we're getting two times ROI or more in those particular cases.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

And I assume it's from Hinge's standpoint, reduced amount of surgeries. And then on the color side, it's earlier detection and intervention. So you're catching things at stage ideally zero, one, not three or four, and you know, catching it earlier, and then there's a tailwind on the back end of it being a hell of a lot cheaper to treat early than late.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Early detection is huge in that particular space, but also you know, reducing gaps in care as well, having a better treatment plan, providing better support also contributes to a to the ROI in that particular case.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

I love it. You've been around the industry for a very long time. You've seen probably just everything under the sun over the last decade kind of proliferate within digital health. What doesn't exist that you wish did?

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Yeah, you know, one of the things that I always come back to is I I wish there was more choice at the member level within employer group plans, right? So, you know, you have large employers or even mid-sized employers that are trying to create plan designs, you know, put together networks, select all the vendors for a workplace that has multiple generations and different locations. So it's a little frustrating to me that we're still at a point where you know a member can't pull various levers to determine what works for them and their family, whether it's deductibles, co-pays, the network that they choose, some of the bolt-on solutions that they have as well. So there's very different needs across the workforce. And, you know, private exchanges, they were supposed to solve for some of this. We don't hear much about private exchanges anymore in the in the group space, and there's limitations there. ICRAs, you know, you know, on the surface, they sound great and candidly, they are a great solution for many employers that are really looking to get out of the the uh you know the risk business, so to speak. But let's be honest, I mean, the individual market as it stands today, I mean, there's very little flexibility and the plan designs aren't great. The networks that you get to choose from are not great, solving for service issues at times when something exists, that's not great. So at the heart of it, I'd love to see more member choice within the group health plan space.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, and I think some of that comes with a lot of the vendors in our space to be a little bit more creative in their pricing. You know, do it on case rate, do it on utilization, take a percentage of cost savings, you know, go at risk or value-based on some of your pricing and modeling so that an employer can embed you in their system. And if people are looking for that typical service, you know, they can find it easily and simply. So really excited about that. Last question who are you nominating next to get in the ring with us? And uh, who do you think scours the market? And their insights and opinions would be you know benefit to the whole industry to hear what they've seen work.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah, that's a good one. And right off the top of my head, there are a bunch of names that come to mind that I believe are you know brilliant minds in this space. Uh the one that I'm gonna tell you about is is Sean Mobley. And Sean's somebody that I have a long history with. I go back to the days at United Healthcare when you know Sean was working in the national account space, but he's spent the last, I'd say, decade plus in the digital health space, advising many digital health companies, working directly for many digital health companies. Um, and I think Sean would be a uh a very interesting person and somebody that your audience would get a lot from if you had him on the on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Love it. We will uh reach out and uh we'll uh get him scheduled. So thank you so much, Brooks. Appreciate all you do with your group over at Holmes Murphy for the entire industry and uh keep up the great work. Thanks for the advice and the recommendations and keep fighting the good fight. All right, thanks, Norm. Appreciate all you do. Thanks. Take care. Thanks for watching Bending the Trend, where we are looking to fight rising health care costs. We are asking benefits leaders what digital health solutions they've implemented that has helped them bend the trend.