[S2E20] Vincent Catalano: Let’s Not Normalize Medical Debt

[S2E22] HR & CFO’s: Before Benefits Decision Season Begins, Start Here.

Benefits Decision Season is officially here! And if your broker is bringing you a renewal right now, the real question is: are you ready to make an informed decision, or are you about to press the easy button again? In this Hot Health Take, Vincent Catalano cuts straight to what HR leaders and CFOs need to do before they agree to anything this season. Three moves, in order. No fluff. First: assess your broker's compensation. If you are on a commission model, you may be handing your broker a raise every single year without realizing it. Vincent explains why moving to a flat fee structure is the most important thing you can do before any renewal conversation goes further. Second: know what is happening under the hood of your own plan. Most mid-market employers are flying blind. Are your employees using the ER when they do not need to? What drugs are being prescribed? Where are the costs actually coming from? If you cannot answer those questions, your renewal decisions are guesses. Third: audit your point solutions. Chances are you are paying for tools your employees have never heard of. Vincent calls it what it is: buying portals nobody uses, vendor promises nobody can prove, and EAP programs collecting dust until the next crisis hits. And then there is employee communication. You are spending $10,000 to $12,000 per employee per year on health benefits. If they do not know how to use what you are giving them, you are wasting it. Before you sign anything this renewal season, get an independent set of eyes on it. Reach out to Vincent directly for a no-strings review of your current plan. And if you found this useful, subscribe so you don't miss the next one. Visit www.clearhcs.com [http://www.clearhcs.com] for more information. About Vincent Catalano Vincent Catalano is the founder of CLEAR Healthcare Solutions and host of the CLEARly Beneficial Podcast, Where We Rip Off the Band-Aid and Explore What's Next. With more than 23 years in employee benefits, Vincent consults independently with no carrier relationships and no book of business. He works exclusively on the employer side, helping HR leaders and CFOs make better, more informed benefits decisions. He holds an MBA from UC Davis Graduate School of Management and a BA from Skidmore College. Vincent is based in Sacramento, California. Disclaimer: This podcast reflects the personal views of the host and guests, not their employers or sponsors.

[S2E21] From Cannes: The Rest of the World Posts the Price. America Won't.

Walking the streets of Cannes, France a week after the film festival, Vincent Catalano had a thought that stopped him cold: every watch in every luxury boutique window had a price. You knew exactly what you were getting into before you walked through the door. Healthcare in America? Not a chance. In this short solo episode recorded while on vacation, Vincent delivers a raw, unfiltered dispatch from several weeks traveling across the UK, France, Italy, and Switzerland. What he saw was a different relationship between governments, citizens, and healthcare costs. One that made the American system's opacity look less like a quirk and more like a choice. This isn't a policy lecture. It's a question Vincent keeps coming back to: what exactly are we protecting, and who are we protecting it for? In this episode: * Why every luxury store in Europe will tell you the price and American healthcare won't * What four weeks across the UK, France, Italy, and Switzerland showed Vincent about cost and access * The real tradeoffs between the NHS model and the U.S. system and why the U.S. version isn't winning that comparison * What would happen if employers gave each employee $1,000 a month instead of handing it to an insurance company * Why price transparency, access, and not being “sold-to” every minute of the day aren't radical ideas. They're the baseline. About Vincent Catalano: Vincent Catalano is the founder and CEO of CLEAR Healthcare Solutions, bringing over 23 years of experience in employee benefits and healthcare consulting, including a senior role at Arthur J. Gallagher. As host of the CLEARly Beneficial Podcast, he cuts through the complexity of the American healthcare system to bring brokers, HR professionals, employer decision-makers and C-suites the real conversations that matter. 🎧 Listen to the podcast here or on your favorite platform: * Substack: https://clearlybeneficialpodcast.substack.com [about:blank] * YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast [https://www.youtube.com/@CLEARlyBenefici%EE%80%80alPodcast] Disclaimer: This content is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional for guidance specific to your situation.

[S2E20] Vincent Catalano: Let’s Not Normalize Medical Debt

A New York Times headline stopped Vincent cold during a walk through Battery Park: the Trump administration is proposing to let insurers finance medical debt on behalf of patients who can't pay their bills. It sounds like a safety net. It's a new market. In this Hot Health Take, Vincent breaks down exactly who benefits when hospitals, insurance companies, and banks are all handed a piece of the medical debt pie, and what it means for the sick consumer already struggling to cover a deductible. He also makes the case for the policy position he's been building toward for years, one that's controversial in his industry, and one he no longer has any reason to stay quiet about. About Vincent Catalano: Vincent Catalano brings over 23 years of employee benefits experience as an independent consultant and host of the CLEARly Beneficial Podcast. His unique position outside corporate constraints allows him to have frank conversations about healthcare issues that others can't address. Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with qualified professionals regarding their specific situations.

[S2E19] Healthcare Big Ideas

We Already Have a Framework That Could Fix Healthcare Everyone complains about the healthcare system. Fewer people are willing to name what needs to change and how. This episode does both. Vincent Catalano sits down with Peter Hayes, recently retired president and CEO of the Healthcare Purchaser Alliance of Maine and former Director of Associate Health and Wellness at Hannaford Supermarkets, and Lawrence Thompson, founder and CEO of Benefit Systems Inc. and a nearly five-decade veteran of the payer, TPA, and self-insurance industries, for a wide-ranging conversation on what it would actually take to fix American healthcare -- on the insurance side, the provider side, and the financing side. The three cover a lot of ground: national licensing, association health plans, a Medicare-based national PPO, banning carrier ownership of providers, equal-nation drug pricing, hospital rate caps, the 340B federal drug program, broker compensation reform, and the administrative cost burden crushing physicians and hospitals alike. Larry drops data on what happens when providers are paid faster -- and how that alone could drive 30 to 35 percent discounts from physicians and similar reductions from hospitals. Peter shares a real story from his days managing Hannaford's self-insured plan that turned a million-dollar failure into a Wall Street Journal feature -- and sparked a national conversation on quality-driven benefit design. And when Vincent asks about brokers, Larry doesn't pull the punch. Thirty-eight years after writing a paper on it, he makes the case again: healthcare brokers should be paid like every other professional advisor -- flat fee, full stop. The framework exists. The question is whether anyone has the will to use it. About Our Guests Peter Hayes recently retired as president and CEO of the Healthcare Purchaser Alliance of Maine, and is formerly a principal of Healthcare Solutions and Director of Associate Health and Wellness at Hannaford Supermarkets. Recognized as a national thought leader in strategic benefit design for more than 25 years, he has been appointed by two different Maine governors to serve on healthcare reform commissions and is a co-founder of the Maine Health Management Coalition. He has served on advisory boards for Express Scripts, DFINITY Health, and others, and has been involved in national organizations including the Center for Health Innovation, Care Focused Purchasing, and Leapfrog. Lawrence Thompson is the founder and CEO of Benefit Systems Inc., a healthcare consulting and solutions firm he launched in 2002. With nearly five decades in the industry, his career spans payer, TPA, reinsurance, stop-loss, and consulting -- including serving as President of Pomco, Inc., one of the largest independent TPAs in the US (which he sold to UnitedHealth in 2017), Chief Commercial Officer of HealthNow New York overseeing $2.8 billion in annual P&L, and Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer at Advanced Medical Pricing Solutions. He founded and grew his own TPA in California and Arizona to 120,000 members before selling it in 2001, and has been a licensed broker since 1978. He is a past Chairman of the Self Insurance Institute of America and spent more than 20 years lobbying on Capitol Hill for the self-insurance industry. About Your Host Vincent Catalano is the CEO and Founder of CLEAR Healthcare Solutions and host of the CLEARly Beneficial Podcast. With more than 23 years of experience in employee benefits and healthcare consulting, Vincent has worked for two of the top 10 international brokerages, served clients ranging from 2 to 7,500 employees, served on insurance carrier advisory councils, and built relationships across health systems, health insurers, medical groups, TPAs, and brokerages. In recent years he has become a dedicated student of healthcare system reform, point solution integration, alternative funding models, and medical and pharmacy cost transparency. He holds an MBA from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management and a BA from Skidmore College. He launched the CLEARly Beneficial Podcast to bring the expertise of his network to brokers, HR professionals, employer decision-makers, and anyone navigating a system that too often works against the people it is supposed to serve. Disclaimer: This podcast reflects the personal views of the host and guests, not their employers or sponsors. Subscribe and Connect * Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/clearly-beneficial-podcast/id1844420953 [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/clearly-beneficial-podcast/id1844420953] * Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0FDXss9G3m5sKwCuokJyAI [https://open.spotify.com/show/0FDXss9G3m5sKwCuokJyAI] * Subscribe on Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/043dc7d0-8535-4175-bd37-81c0e7f60aa1/clearly-beneficial-podcast [https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/043dc7d0-8535-4175-bd37-81c0e7f60aa1/clearly-beneficial-podcast] * Subscribe on Substack: https://substack.com/@clearlybeneficialpodcast [https://substack.com/@clearlybeneficialpodcast] * Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast [https://www.youtube.com/@CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast] * Connect with Vincent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vcatalano [https://www.linkedin.com/in/vcatalano/] * CLEAR Healthcare Solutions website: https://clearhcs.com/ [https://clearhcs.com/]

[S2E18] Dr. Lisa Larkin: Menopause Is Costing Your Company More Than You Know

Your most experienced employees may be quietly struggling with symptoms that are treatable. And your benefits plan probably isn't covering it. Dr. Lisa Larkin, MD, FACP, MSCP, IF, a nationally recognized women's health internist, founder and CEO of Ms. Medicine, and Past President of The Menopause Society, joins Vincent Catalano to examine what untreated menopause actually costs employers — in productivity, retention, and workforce exit — and what a better benefits strategy looks like. They cover why the traditional insurance-based model is structurally incapable of addressing midlife women's health; how direct care and concierge models are filling the gap; the limits of telemedicine and AI as substitutes for relationship-based care; and what forward-thinking employers are doing differently right now. About Dr. Lisa Larkin: Dr. Lisa Larkin, MD, FACP, MSCP, IF, is a nationally recognized women's health internist with over 35 years of clinical experience. She is the founder and CEO of Ms. Medicine, a national network of 30 women's health specialists across 17 practices in 10 states, and founder and CEO of Concierge Medicine of Cincinnati. She is the founder and Executive Director of HERmedicine, an education nonprofit reaching clinicians in all 50 states and 37 countries, and a Past President of The Menopause Society. Dr. Larkin has been featured in CNN, the New York Times, O Magazine, NPR, and SiriusXM's Doctor Radio. About Vincent Catalano: Vincent Catalano brings over 23 years of employee benefits experience as an independent consultant and host of The CLEARly Beneficial Podcast. His unique position outside corporate constraints allows him to have frank conversations about healthcare issues that others in the industry won't. Disclaimer: The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Listeners should consult with qualified professionals regarding their specific situations. Subscribe & Connect: YouTube: @CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast [https://www.youtube.com/@CLEARlyBeneficialPodcast] Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/clearlybeneficialpodcast [https://open.substack.com/pub/clearlybeneficialpodcast] Website: www.clearhcs.com [http://www.clearhcs.com]  This episode is a reprise of season 2 episode 9.