No employer wants their team members to be in medical debt. But in today’s healthcare landscape, simply having health insurance is not enough to protect employees from financial hardship. Goodroot CEO Michael Waterbury talks healthcare navigation and outlines a key shift in thinking that helps overcome this dynamic.
Transcript:
I think the thing that people don’t necessarily think of is, like any investment, how do you guarantee or how do you minimize the risk of getting a high return on that investment? So you hand over benefits that are just extremely complicated without any support or guidance.
The idea of anything, you may not get everything that you’re expecting to get out of it. So there are companies out there. We have one called Emry Health that navigates employees through the system. So help them understand their benefits, help them understand which doctor to choose. Maybe. Maybe there’s a lower cost drug that you can choose if you’re on a high-cost brand.
And then ultimately, if you do have a bill, if you have a deductible or what have you, helping you negotiate that bill and apply for financial assistance when you’re eligible.
So it’s like any investment. Sometimes I look at if you’re spending a million dollars on your healthcare, would you want to spend $50,000 or $75,000 on a navigator to make it work better? Probably–if you think you’re going to have this healthier, more productive and more satisfied employee.
