Having started working in the healthcare space directly after graduating, Bryan quickly learned the ins and outs of health insurers, broker distribution, and self-insurers. After a decade in the industry, Bryan decided to pivot to a much smaller company and became both the CEO and just the 3rd employee at RxBenefits in 2005. He then realized the opportunity to help smaller, self-insured companies handle their pharmacy benefits by carving those out. RxBenefits developed a platform connected directly to the major Pharmacy Benefit Manager systems, which enabled them to directly and cost-effectively ingest claims and operate as an apparent larger entity. This approach helped them deliver mid-market employers an average direct pharmacy savings of 27% and an indirect clinical savings of 10% per year. Hear host Steve Krupa chat with Bryan on his transition to a much smaller company, how RxBenefits has leveraged their niche in pharmacy benefits for mid-sized companies, and Bryan’s vision for the company’s future

While working as a graduate student intern for a clinical documentation company, Jeff discovered his passion for the healthcare industry. He stayed there for 10 years and benefited from strong mentoring and development opportunities before seeing the company through its exit. Fast-forward 6 years- after another successful exit as a senior manager at a different business- Jeff was introduced to the concept of payment integrity and started ClarisHealth to help solve challenges in this area. Having grown from 3 to over 140 employees, Jeff sees ClarisHealth’s focus as helping plans tackle their entire payment integrity continuum (post-pay to pre-pay) with a longer-term vision of increasing payer-to-provider transparency. ClarisHealth’s Pareo platform is a multi-module SaS solution that helps health plans and payers grow recoveries from 1% to 7% or more. Hear host Steve Krupa chat with Jeff on his decision to start the business and how it has benefited both payers and providers.

Starting out as a minor league baseball broadcaster, Ben Albert realized he was better at the business side of his role than the on-air aspect. He then landed at a healthcare consulting company and became hooked on healthcare- so many silos and opportunities for automation! After a successful exit at the helm of Care Team Connect, Ben decided to start and lead Upfront Healthcare to help patients navigate the unending waters of their medical journeys. By applying analytics to scheduling, billing, and operational data to develop each patients’ profile, the company can direct patients through an app-less experience to their next right service, which can be booked right then. Not only do patients enjoy this much easier experience, but providers benefit from the improved revenue profile for each patient and reduced administrative overhead. Listen to host Steve Krupa chat with Ben on how he progressed from deciding if he should start the business to now running a company servicing over 1 million patients in less than five years.

Host Steve Krupa chats with Aver CEO Bill Nordmark about Bill’s career in the healthcare payer and reimbursement space, including his decision to take over the reins at Aver. Hear Bill share helpful insights on retrospective vs. prospective payment systems and how he is leading Aver on the quest to increase quality of care while reducing costs by helping payers expand and bundle payment programs.

Steve sits down with Zipari Founder and CEO, Mark Nathan to discuss how his career set him up for entrepreneurship, as well as the motivation and inspiration for starting a health insurance consumer experience platform. Mark shares the challenges associated with taking a homegrown business technology and creating generally available software and gives his best advice for entrepreneurs starting a company. 

Greg discusses his early days as a professional musician and shows how creativity and problem-solving helped transition his career into software development, and led him to working in healthcare, helping providers and patients by innovating payment data. He discusses developing new, data-enabled products and using advancements in tech to expand a company footprint.  

No fan of traditional PBMs, Steve Krupa talks with Jake Frenz, founder and CEO of SmithRx, creator of a new tech-based PBM player.

Breaking Health Host Steve Krupa catches up with Peter Foley, founder and CEO of LetsGetChecked, a company that’s empowering patients to monitor their own health through diagnostic tests. Hear how Foley and his team built patient convenience into a powerful business. 

Chris Molaro calls his six years in the US Army leading a Field Artillery platoon his biggest honor. But he says his “biggest leadership failure” came after his platoon redeployed back home. In this episode of the Breaking Health podcast, Host Steve Krupa connects with a young veteran who is using inspiration from a tragic loss of one of his soldiers to depression to improve mental healthcare for everyone. “We could have intervened if we had a better system in place,” Molaro says.    

Our Host Steve Krupa has a visitor. Aetion CEO Carolyn Magill pops by Steve’s office at HealthEdge to explain how Aetion raised a round of capital it wasn’t seeking. She also delves deeply into how Aetion’s analysis of different types of data – genomic, socioeconomic, EHR’s – can change how healthcare is delivered and how are costs covered.You can WATCH this Breaking Health podcast interview here.