Rethinking Employer Health Plans with Kristen Rivers
What if the future of employer health care depends less on shifting costs and more on helping people get healthier earlier? In this episode of Get to the Root, Kristen Rivers, SVP at Pareto Health, joins Dr. Erica Armstrong to discuss the growing pressure employers face as health care costs continue to rise. Kristen shares why traditional models often leave employers with limited options beyond raising deductibles or passing more expenses onto employees, and how self-funded models, better data, and transparency can help them move beyond band-aid fixes to address the root causes driving claims. Tune in to hear why proactive, personalized care can change lives, improve productivity, and help employers build smarter, more sustainable health plans.
About Kristen Rivers:
Kristen Rivers is the Senior Vice President of Sales at ParetoHealth, where she leads sales growth and strategic initiatives across the West Region. With nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare, she has seen firsthand the systemic challenges and biases employers face when trying to offer sustainable, effective health benefits. Her work focuses on helping employers regain control of their healthcare strategy, improving outcomes, and reducing unnecessary costs. Before joining ParetoHealth, Kristen spent more than a decade at UnitedHealth Group in sales and leadership roles, where she managed teams and developed business strategies that drove meaningful results. Today, she is passionate about creating a more equitable and efficient healthcare system by advocating for fairer practices, smarter plan design, and innovative solutions that empower employers and better support their people.
Things You’ll Learn:
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Employers are reaching a breaking point as rising medical costs and high-cost therapies make traditional health plan strategies harder to sustain.
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Fully insured and level-funded models often leave employers with few options beyond shifting more costs onto employees.
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Self-funded models can give employers more flexibility, transparency, and control over the solutions they offer their teams.
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Functional medicine can help address the root causes of chronic conditions by using deeper lab data, nutrition, lifestyle support, and personalized care.
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Proactive health benefits can improve employee productivity, reduce long-term risk, and create stronger loyalty by giving people access to care they may not otherwise afford.
Resources:
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Connect with and follow Kristen Rivers on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenrivers/].
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Follow Pareto Health on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/pareto-health/] and visit their website [https://www.paretohealth.com/].
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Follow Root Functional Medicine on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/root-functional-medicine/] and visit their website [https://rootfunctionalmedicine.com/].
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Get your own Root Cause Panel to uncover root potential causes and optimize health here [https://rootfunctionalmedicine.com/product/root-7]!
