It’s 2026, but the healthcare system still feels like it’s stuck in the past. Costs are soaring, benefits are confusing, and employees are left navigating a system built on pieces that don’t fit together. Employers are exhausted trying to manage it all, while employees struggle to get the care they need. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Smart employers and their consultants are flipping the script: cutting costs, simplifying the experience, and creating benefits their people actually love. On The Benefits Playbook, we uncover the bold strategies that are rewriting the rules of self-funded health benefits.

In Season 4, host Kirk McConnell speaks with industry leaders about bringing transparency to a system built on confusion, using the right financial levers to deliver real value and impact, and designing benefits that truly work for employees. We’ll talk about better data. Better tools. Better insights. Smarter decisions. And benefits strategy that finally makes sense.

This is The Benefits Playbook, Season 4. Brought to you by Collective Health.

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Links

Connect with Kirk McConnell on LinkedIn

Learn more about Collective Health

Learn more about Caspian Studios

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This episode features an interview with Christian Moreno, Executive Vice President of Lockton. With more than 20 years of experience, Christian specializes in designing health plans that are fully integrated with wellness solutions, helping employers manage the demand side of healthcare.

In this episode, Kirk and Christian discuss strategies to manage healthcare cost volatility, the efficacy of wellness programs versus high-cost medications, and the potential shift towards narrower networks to contain costs while maintaining quality care.

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“ I don't know that you can make this just an employee decision at the end of the day. It's going to have to happen further upstream if we want to have a seismic or substantial impact on cost. If we're just talking about physician A versus physician B, but I can still choose to go within any hospital system at any time with total freedom.  If we are going to leave it up to employees and just make it a broad PPO network, I don't know that they have the information just yet to make those decisions. It's going to have to have come from intelligent data tools in their hand. It's going to have to have assistance from the TPA and it's going to have to have assistance from the ecosystem around the member making those decisions.” – Christian Moreno

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Episode Timestamps:

*(00:51): Christian’s career journey

*(02:31): Volatility in healthcare costs

*(10:12): Wellness programs and GLP-1s

*(20:28): Network design and future strategies

*(27:49): Driving employees to high quality providers

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Links:

Connect with Christian on LinkedIn

Contact Christian

Connect with Kirk on LinkedIn

Learn more about Collective Health

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This episode features an interview with Siobhan Nolan Mangini and Bob Kocher from Venrock. Siobhan is a Partner at Venrock, where she focuses on investments in healthcare technology and services. Prior to joining Venrock, Siobhan was an operator passionate about transforming healthcare through building and scaling innovative companies at the intersection of healthcare and technology. Also a Partner at Venrock, Bob focuses on health tech and services investments. Before joining the company, Bob served in the Obama Administration as Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy on the National Economic Council and was a Partner at McKinsey & Company.

In this episode, Kirk, Siobhan, and Bob explore Venrock's philosophy and approach to investing in transformative healthcare companies, the importance of aligning incentives, and the potential impact of AI and technology on healthcare delivery.

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“ Taking these dials that we're talking about and realizing, oh, I can carve out my PBM, I can put in benefits like Lyra, for example, behavioral health solution for my entire employee population. I can layer on maybe dynamic copays or narrow network designs, high performing networks, and actually have control. That idea that I am an agent of change, of providing better care, but a lower cost for my employees, is actually there and that they have the tools. That much more empowered driver's seat, to me, is where we'd be a decade from now, if not sooner.” – Siobhan Nolan Mangini

“ Changing healthcare is painful. It might be better at the other end, but the change is hard. People will have to change their insurance or change their doctors or change how they access care or it changes. We learned from the ACA and we've learned from everything since that people don't like that. You have to have something that's even stronger than the pain of changing how healthcare works. And then I think there's lots of ways to imagine how it could be better.” – Bob Kocher

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Episode Timestamps:

*(00:43): Siobhan and Bob’s paths to Venrock

*(04:38): The state of US healthcare today

*(15:44): The importance of aligning incentives

*(20:14): Empowering employers as agents of change

*(25:29): AI’s impact on healthcare delivery

*(27:45): Headwinds and tailwinds in the healthcare system

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Links:

Contact Siobhan

Contact Bob

Connect with Kirk on LinkedIn

Learn more about Collective Health

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