Posts by Frank Stichter

Leah Binder Forbes Contributor “Most employers have no idea whether they get value for the money they spend on health benefits. Employers rarely see data on the performance of health care providers, such as rates of infections or outcomes. Contracts with pharmacy benefits managers, health plans, and consultants often hide the real costs of services.…

I hate to say this but unfortunately, the health insurance business is one which is over promised and under delivered. How often have you heard from insurance companies or brokers that they can do remarkable things to lower your healthcare costs, but at the end of the day the costs keep going up and/or there…

Since we were kids, grades are the gauges of our performances. Whether they were alphabetic in school (A, B, C, D, or F) or numeric on some scale (1-10 or 1-100) for other things, grades of some kind give us a measurement of performance. Outcomes of a variety of testing, performance reviews, how well a…

Some employers play chess with their health plan while others play checkers. What are you? Those who play chess have a strategy and a game plan and anticipate 2, to 3 or more moves at a time. Those that are playing checkers are simply reacting to what their opponent does by jumping their opponents piece…

Wouldn’t you like to dial back the years – 10 or 12 years – when health insurance costs were half of what they are today? Rule of 72. Over that period of time, you’ve had to dramatically cost shift your increases to employees by way of increased contributions, higher deductibles, coinsurance, copay’s, and higher out-of-pocket…

Steve Jobs in 1997 stole an idea from Nike and inspired his employees with his “Think Different” campaign and challenged them to be “the crazy ones” like those who changed the world before us. If you would like to watch his talk Click Here and be sure to watch until the very end. This is…

I’m sure you’ve put together numerous jigsaw puzzles over the years ever since you were a little child. I remember when I was very young that the early puzzles had pre-shaped pieces that fit in predetermined places, making it very easy to put the puzzle together. As I got older there were other puzzles that…

Remember History class and the American Revolutionary War? How ‘conventional’ war was when the British came to America to battle the Colonies? The conventional way that war was battled was that both armies would line up against one another on the field of battle and they would take turns firing at each other’s lines. Men…