Coming up in today's show, America's Healthcare Advocate,
we're going to be talking with John Kuhlmann
from Kuhlmann Group, as well as Lauren Broyles
and Josh Banwart his associates that work at Kuhlmann Group, with them.
If you've ever wondered
how would my association get health benefits, how would that work?
Or maybe you've got a large group plan
and you'd like to figure out a better way to handle your health insurance benefits.
You can do that by talking with these folks.
But most importantly, listen and learn.
Today, as we talk about how an association could actually offer health benefits,
especially if you've got 1099 employees.
And now America's Healthcare Advocate, Cary Hall.
Hello, America.
Welcome to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast
across USA here on the HIA Radio Network.
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Garner Cowdery behind the microphones.
And Mr. David Thiessen behind all the cameras.
The man who post all these shows up on our podcast and YouTube channel,
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In studio with me again today.
John Kuhlmann, CEO of Kuhlmann Group.
And you brought a few associates today. All right.
So we have Lauren Broyles, who is your vice president director of operations.
And I have Josh Banwart, who is also a financial advisor with Kuhlmann Group.
So welcome all three of you. Happy to have you here.
You're an old pro at this Thanks, Cary.
Yeah, I’ve been doing it since 1991.
So a long time ago when I started my firm. Yeah.
So so let's talk a little bit about that because what you do is a little different,
than what I see out there with a lot of brokers.
What you do, you, you, I think you kind of,
you kind of specialize in this association management,
association health benefits and all.
The other thing is you go with association management.
So it's a different corridor.
We're working with you, with the GigCare program,
some of the programs on that for 1099 and self-employed.
But let's talk about how you got into that and what you do there
that makes you so different than everybody else.
Because I've been doing this for 23 years and the first person I ever ran across it
does this like you do. Thanks, Gary.
So in, 2019, we started
working with one of our clients, and,
we, basically saved them $1.4 million just on their health insurance
and another $120,000 on their ancillary coverages.
And at the time,
they were the with the 13th largest consulting firm in the country.
And, they had been with them for years.
And, the line that they gave them on every renewal
was, well, medical trends running around 8 or 9%.
So it's a fair increase.
You should just take it.
And they don't even really show the group out when they do.
They don't really do an adequate job.
And that's pretty much what we see on most groups that we work on.
So, we don't take that approach.
We actually go to market on every line of coverage with every carrier.
And there's a big reason for that.
There's a lot of value in the TPA’s that we go to.
TPA stands for third party administrators, whereas you hear about the BUCA’s.
Those are all the big publicly traded insurance companies.
So their motivations are different than the than the TPAs.
The TPAs are privately owned,
and because they're privately owned, their whole focus and goal is to drive
the most affordable health care with the best benefits possible to the members.
So for this client,
not only did we save him the 1.4 million on their health,
120,000 on their ancillary, but we also improved all those benefits.
The next thing is, is that we after we did that,
the CEO shared with us that he has an association.
And at the time they had over 3000 dues paying members.
Before we were in the picture, they had over 3000 dues band members.
When we came into the picture, they had shrunk down to 850 dues paying members.
So there's they were like, do you think you could do this
for our customers and help them?
Because it would create a lot of goodwill
for our customers and help us help our customers.
And, absolutely said absolutely.
So we did that in about two and a half years later,
they're back up to about 3500 dues paying members, which is tremendous
growth for the association.
We're not the only reason why that happened.
Their executive director, was a big part of why that happened, too.
But, with our programs and our that are very comprehensive,
we helped basically do that and we in turn have also saved
a lot of their clients five figures, on their benefits.
Also.
You know, if you're listening to this and you're wondering
maybe you're a member of an association.
Maybe you're just a member of an association, maybe you're a director,
maybe you're a CEO.
Or maybe you're someone thinking about what you want to do,
and we'd like to have an association,
but we'd like to talk about maybe we can do health benefits.
Well, there are a lot of hoops you have to go through, and there are certain ways
it has to be done that what you need is a knowledgeable expert.
And that's what Kuhlmann Group is and that's what I'm listening to you.
That's what you're demonstrating to the audience.
That's why I wanted to do this show today.
There is a lot of need in the marketplace right now, especially
when we talk about the 1099 self-employed space.
We'll get into that a little later in the show.
But the idea of innovation, that's what Kuhlmann Group brings to this.
And if you are in an association and you don't have benefits for health care.
These are the folks you want to talk to because that's what they do.
So talk about you've got a pretty long list of everything you do here.
I was just doing show prep about 4:30 this morning.
Was ramping up and I worked on this yesterday as well.
But the point is, you know, I'm seeing everything on here from critical illness
to financial advisory to payroll to individual voluntary benefits.
And it goes down the list.
I'm guessing, Lauren, you probably have a lot to do with how all that happens.
Yeah, it actually does the work.
If I had to guess. Yeah.
So I actually talk with a lot of the customers
and to speak on the Association John was talking about.
A lot of
the members, they're little mom and pop shops.
So this has brought a solution to those mom and pop shops
where they don't know where to turn, where it might
just be a husband-spouse group, and they need access to benefits.
So this has been a huge, you know, basically solution to them
to get needs met for their employees and put benefits in place.
You know, so John, that's interesting.
Lauren brings that up because the most underserved
everybody wants to do the 500,000 life case.
We want to do that too.
Oh I know but
it's the 1 to 50 that in
this marketplace are getting killed with these huge increases.
You've talked about this before that are coming across on the ACA type plans.
All the rest of it.
And as Lauren said, it's a mom and pop shop.
Maybe they've got you know, I'm a 27 year recovering broker.
Okay. Right.
And I remember going into place
that there be ten, 11, 12 employees and they're getting killed on cost.
One of the things that you're doing with your association
management is bringing them solutions like that.
So talk a little bit about that.
I know you're doing the GigCare program, consumer data respondents with the folks
with our company of Population Science Management out of Nebraska.
But talk about Lauren just mentioned that giving them access
to something they can't find in the marketplace that you're doing.
Right.
So on all size groups, basically what we bring to
the table is a full array of benefits.
And on anything we do, we make sure that we check
all of the options that any client could have for everything.
So when you look at these smaller companies,
many of them can't even afford to provide health insurance to their members.
That's why we brought in the GigCare solution, the 1099.
Right.
You also get some employers will.
What we found is a lot of employers are outsourcing their
IT because the it doesn't want to be an employee.
They want to work for other companies and help multiple companies.
But some employers want to be able to cover those 1099 people.
So we have two solutions for that.
We have the GigCare, but we also have in particular one TPA that will literally
allow you to cover 1099 people in addition to your regular W-2 people.
It's really a wonderful program.
It's probably the best health care program out there for groups.
It's not probably it is.
So we have a lot of groups that we've been able to put with them
and literally not have the rates change in three years.
And actually, we just had one of our larger groups
with 600 employees and their third year of no increase.
The rates actually went down in their third year
and their benefits stayed the same. So it's really powerful stuff.
In addition to that, they bring powerful solutions to the table for PBMs.
Pharmacy Benefit Managers. Yes. Okay.
So the prescription drug side of their plans
basically they do some great innovative stuff on that,
just like GigCare does on its pharmacy side for its individual members.
They basically are able to get the drugs that are name brand drugs for individuals,
high cost drugs, typically at no cost or low cost for the member.
Whereas under if you're with one of the large insurance carriers,
basically you're usually paying your out-of-pocket max for it.
Yeah you are, that, you're coinsurance and maybe some the deductible
depending on the plan.
So when we come back from the break going to talk more about this.
And then in the third segment we're going to talk about how
Kuhlmann group actually offers financial planning help to a lot of members as well.
And Josh will talk to you about that.
If you want information, maybe you're curious about how did they do this?
Or maybe you've got an association or co-op or whatever the case may be,
and you're looking for a solution, or you'd like something that would help
members like was just described by what John talked about.
314-494-7860, So anywhere in the country, they're happy to help you.
We'll be right back after the break.
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John, let's talk a little bit more about what's interesting to me is that you guys
look for solutions that other people just don't seem to take the time to look for.
You made that comment about brokers.
Brokers go in and show a spreadsheet and say pick the least evil
on the spreadsheet, as opposed to,
the way you're
doing it, which is: Here are the problems.
What are your needs and how do we find a solution?
Right.
So one of the things is, we have a true
passion for what we do, and we outwork everybody.
And we don't come back and tell any client ever.
Hey, you just got a 10% increase in medical.
Inflation's running around 9 to 10%.
So you should just take it because it's fair.
You'll never hear that from us.
As a matter of fact
even if our groups get a rate decrease on the renewal that that happens sometimes
it's rare. You know, we still we still shop them out.
And the reason for it, it's the second or third most expensive line
item that any company has.
And for a few companies, it might even be the most expensive.
Yeah, absolutely.
So we always make sure we do that.
And we do that on every line of coverage.
Because basically what we found is even on the ancillary,
most brokers do what's best for them, not what's best for the client.
Why I'm bringing that up is, as a consultant, we know that
the health insurance drives the relationship between the client
and the broker, the consultant.
So unfortunately, for most folks, once they pick the health
insurance, the broker just puts them with who usually is best for them.
And we don't do that.
We shop everybody on the ancillary like we do on the on the health insurance side.
And then we also add in a Ben Admin system and,
basically help the employees with an enrollment platform
and we automate all that with the payroll so that there's less administrative
work to do. Lauren.
Lauren handles that for us with our clients on a regular basis.
Talk about that, Lauren. How do you handle that?
And I noticed when I was going to all the materials
you're doing everything from payroll.
We're going to talk about financial planning in the next segment.
You know, all the other things that you do.
Critical illness, Clever Rx.
Tailored 1099 Contractors.
Talk about how all that works.
Yeah. So I handle the administration side.
So I'm everywhere from the implementation to the service.
So my job on customer service is to make your HR teams life easier.
We service all size groups.
So maybe your lack of an HR team.
So I help make sure that everything
streamlines from your payroll to the benefits to the carrier side.
So, like John was speaking on,
we still have some people that we come across that are still using
paper enrollment forms to enroll their,
employees at renewal time, which is just insane.
There's so many solutions out there.
We like to put in Ben Admin Systems.
It makes the HR teams life easier because things are automatic.
When you leave things up to paper or in a person's hands, there can be, you know,
human error when that happens.
So making it more streamlined.
So it's on EDI connections eliminates errors that can occur.
We had Kenny Delco on, a couple times and talked about
what you're doing with NHRA, an association you're working with.
National Hot Rod Association.
Kenny has a saying that he does that’s part of the GigCare discussion.
He said, “a company built for hard working Americans”.
And you have a saying that “we're Main Street, we're not servicing Wall Street”.
What does that mean? What?
So we always, share with folks that we're all about Main Street,
not about Wall Street.
And what we mean by that is a lot of the bigger consulting firms,
they literally are working with the big carriers The BUCA carriers.
The BUCA carriers, most of them publicly traded.
And like on prescription drugs, they, some of them even get cuts
off all the prescription drugs that the member takes,
when they're already overpaying.
They're getting the rebates.
So the a lot of the privately owned TPAs, third party administrators that we work
with, they'll literally cut the, the rebates out of the plan
and get the drug to the member, or either low cost or no cost helping
the member also dramatically lowering the cost of the drug.
You take a drug like Humera, it's about $8000 a month. Yep.
A lot of the bigger carriers will tell you, though, that
it'll only cost you 4500 to 5000 a month for the drug.
And their right, if you go through them. Yeah.
What they don't tell you is that they're getting a rebate of about $2,500
a month on that drug, Every month on every member on the drug.
It's insane.
So the TPAs we work with, they cut all that out, and they either get
the rebate eliminated
to lower the cost of the drug by the cost
the rebate, or if the pharmaceutical company insists on paying the rebate,
they put it back in the client's claim bucket typically.
Or like Detego, when you work with our company, Detego Health, our TPA,
we have our own program called Script Aid and we just import the stuff.
Right.
And if you're taking Humira and we're importing it,
you're going to pay a lot less than what you're going to pay
any of the major carriers, that's for sure.
I don't think a lot of the public really understands this.
And it's understandable. This is not.
Look, health care is confusing as hell.
Okay. Believe me.
As I said, I've been doing this 27 years.
It's not an easy topic
for people to wrap their head around, but what you're hearing is
when when you want to do something like this, you need an expert.
And that's what these people are.
And what you're talking about is solutions that are out of the box.
Right. Okay.
And they take work.
Right. It's a lot of work. Yeah.
But we put it in. Yeah.
We just won a group of 100.
And there was two other firms that we were up against and a new client for us.
We picked them up.
And their existing consultant had been with them for around 35 years.
That's a long time.
And we replaced them and, saved the group,
basically well over six figures just on their medical.
So we're going to be bringing other great solutions
in to automate things and make them more efficient, improve things too.
But we really do try to bring a whole package, approach to everything we do,
but related to benefits.
So another big area that we run into is people on their payroll.
So we don't sell payroll, but we have some very good partners
on that that are literally technology companies that do payroll.
They dramatically lower the cost of the payroll,
and they significantly improve and make it more automated.
And then that ties back into the Ben Admin System that Lauren was talking about.
To give you an idea, we have a group of 100,
in the state of Washington just on their payroll.
We saved them $480,000.
That's insane.
Yeah, we saved them close to another hundred thousand on
their, medical.
And then we saved them about 20 grand, maybe 25 grand on their 401K.
Those are all the things that contribute to making a difference.
And that and that is critically important.
You know, unfortunately, in today's world, as you talked about, you know, the
a lot of the big houses, the big the big brokers, the big insurance carriers,
they don't look at things quite like that. Right.
It's the medium small size broker
in your case, you know, you're pretty large firm,
but you're still taking to heart what needs to be done for the client.
We're actually bringing to the table
solutions that the big consulting firms can do, but typically don't do.
They don't want to be bothered with it.
I can't tell you how many groups of two and 3000
I know of that are with one of the big name box house consulting firms.
They don't even shop the groups out.
It's it's literally criminal that they're getting away with this.
But people think they need them. They think they need an army.
All they are doing is overpaying for all their benefits.
They're harming their employees.
They're not really meeting their fiduciary duty to protect them.
With things like the prescription drugs, they're not shopping it out adequately,
doing what they should do.
So we bring all those solutions to the table.
And I can just tell you that we normally get every group we quote on.
Yeah. And I was saying I.
Would imagine you do.
And the thing I would say is it's all about the data.
If you will give us the data we need.
The other thing we don't do, we don't do what the big consulting firms do.
We don't make you sign a contract saying that you'll go with us
no matter what and pay us.
We'll just do our work and you can choose to go with us or not.
We live off the merits of our work, so.
And we normally win every time.
It's a great solution.
If you want information, you're you're fascinated, you're intrigued.
What you're hearing here, can they really make a difference.
Well you’re not going to know if you don't reach out to them.
So if you want to contact John 314-494-7860.
So if you're on the podcast or looking on YouTube, the number,
the website is across the bottom of the screen.
You can look at that as well. We'll be right back after the break.
We're going to get in the weeds a little bit now
and talk about some of the other things that they do
on the financial planning side and some of the others.
Stay tuned.
We'll be right back after the break here on America's Healthcare Advocate.
Welcome back.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate
Show broadcasting coast to coast here across the USA.
If you want help or information, go to the website AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com.
Send me an email. I am happy to help you.
My producer today, Mr.
Garner Cowdrey, Mr.
Dave Thiessen, doing a wonderful job as they always do.
Broadcasting here out of our studios in Overland Park, Kansas.
My guests in studio today.
John Kuhlmann, the founder and CEO of Kuhlmann Group, Lauren Broyles he's
the senior VP that does all the real work behind the scenes that John doesn't do.
And that's adviser John Banwart, who's going to talk today
about the financial advisor services they offer through Kuhlmann Group.
So you know, people are listening to this and they're going, well,
we were told “Associations” couldn't offer health benefits.
They were told associations couldn't have health benefits.
And there's that.
I'm not saying that's not true, but there are there are ways
to make this work, especially like talk about some of the associations.
I mean, you've got over 750,000 people
who are working with us on the GigCare program on right now,
offered through PSM Nebraska are standalone and
if they're willing to be a consumer data respondent, they have access to this large
group plan.
Talk about how people access that if they if they're like, what can we do that.
Yeah. So the big thing is, is if you...
Even if you have an association plan now, a group plan for your groups
and associations, the problem with it typically is after the first year or two,
what you typically see happen is the groups that are in it
that are sick stay,
and then the healthy groups leave because they can find insurance cheaper
on their own. It’s called the death spiral. Yeah. And that's
just very typical of what associations have happened.
So we do things differently.
And basically what we do is we bring in a solution like GigCare
for the individuals that want to go on to the GigCare program, wonderful program.
And then we also bring to the table group plans, but we broker that out.
We consult with each group depending upon their size,
on the health insurance and on the on the groups.
And we broker that out with the different companies.
And we check every company that's available in the market
for where that group is located and headquartered.
We also do it on all the ancillary coverages.
We also provide financial advisory, including 401Ks and pensions.
And one of the innovative things we do is we,
have a PEP program when it's appropriate.
And, we can show that to members, but we typically evaluate everything,
even on that and all their options on the 401K to look at.
And then Josh, we have Josh to work with on
individual financial advisory and other things.
So Josh, talk about what you do in your role here.
In terms of financial advisor, we talked before the show
and you're actually helping members.
Let's say you've got a member of an association, he's
turning 65 or 66 or she's turning 65, 66.
They've had a 401K.
They've got money sitting there now they're going to retire.
What do I do with it?
How do I invest it?
This market's all over the place.
Up 400 points one day down a thousand another.
I know because I'm in it.
So how
do you handle that in addition to the 401Ks?
Josh. Yeah, absolutely.
How do we retire and stay retired? Right.
I like that's. Kind of the key out there. Yeah.
And generally we'll just assess a few key risks of running out of money.
And how can we,
make sure that, you know, that doesn't occur in your, your spend down?
Also, there's often questions around estate and hand off, legacy.
It's all complimentary to the 401K and the qualified plans
and at Kuhlmann Group are just really trying
to bring a collaborative, service right in into the mix.
We don't want to just be pigeonholed into one area.
So, a lot of times it's it's just kind of assessing those key risks.
One being inflation. How do we keep up?
Generally the answer is the market.
Yeah. That's uncomfortable. Right.
So we place sometimes market based solutions.
But then we've got to have some level of cash or guaranteed position
that isn't going to be fluctuating in bad markets.
Generally the third one is the risk of a long term health care event.
We say it's a flip of a coin 50/50, right?
You or your spouse.
And generally you're going to have something if you don't have a plan.
The state has a plan for you.
So we we generally like to have control as well.
And then the last one is, is the one that makes everything else worse.
It's just longevity.
So go to that long term care thing for a second.
Because I'm gonna throw an interesting statistic at you.
How many people in this country, lets see if any of you can answer this,
have long term care insurance, give me a percentage.
I would guess less than 10%.
It is less than 10%. You got 100% correct.
Now I'm one of the ones that has had long term care since he was 45 years old.
Okay.
And and I, like Laurie and I still have that same plan in place.
But the point is, and you touched on that,
that if you don't have a long term care plan, you're going on Medicaid
or you're eating into your estate to pay for long term care.
So that's interesting that you touched on that.
So talk a little bit about what are they looking at cost wise
if they don't have a long term care plan to be in a halfway decent facility,
not a medicaid facility where there's two people to a room,
one shared television and a bathroom, they both get to share.
That's a lot of fun, I'm sure.
Okay.
And the first thing you notice when you walk in the door is the smell of Pine-Sol.
You know, you're in a medicaid facility.
Talk about what it means to get into a decent private facility.
Yeah. So, I did a lot of studying on this.
I actually pursued a credential specifically in long term care.
And the reason is, is because it's a huge issue.
There used to be a lot of companies in the space.
There's not now. Now there's about 11.
And there's I certainly wouldn't sell all 11.
Right.
You know, when we when we step into that space.
So you've got to be careful in evaluating that, and not overpaying.
But there's, there's generally not to get too specific here,
but there's generally three ways to solve it.
One is you just take cash and put it on the sidelines, invest it,
but it's protected.
That's the most expensive way. Right?
Two would be some, some level of kind of basic long term care.
You use it or lose it, you know, you pay for it.
It's kind of like car insurance.
We don't hope that we get in an accident. Right.
But if we do, we're sure glad we have it.
And the third is some sort of hybrid where we'll use.
Life insurance to buy long term care.
And so what what the best option is, is generally dependent upon the individual,
and their circumstance.
But so give me an average cost that, you see for a decent long term care facility.
But I'll tell you what my benefit is after you do that.
Yeah.
So, so the average cost and depends on your state.
Yeah.
In the state of Missouri around Saint Louis is about $4,500 a month.
That's right. And that's the average. Right.
So if you have a more skilled nursing type facility, it's going to be
well in excess of that memory care is, I think, maybe the most expensive it is.
Yeah.
And and generally we'll see that close to ten grand a month.
So my benefit right now is $300 a day and Lori’s is $300 a day,
which wouldn't cover the cost of what he's talking about, it's gone up every year.
It did not. Policy's gone up, but not every year.
But the the benefit has held and and we're very fortunate to have it.
And luckily I'm you know I'm if we're in enough we're in decent shape to it.
If there's a difference we pay for it.
The problem is it's less than 10%.
What's interesting is, John, you're doing this as an association manager.
How many people are there, do you think even know this is going to be an issue.
Or they think here, oh, Medicare is going to pay for this.
I don't have to pay.
Most people, from my experience, don't
they don't even think about it, though. Yeah.
A lot of people don't even have a will.
You know, one of the first things we talk to people about is basically, you know,
do you have your state set up properly and just making sure that everything's
proper, it's everything we do is really individualized to each customer,
whether it be an individual, their needs, it's their individual needs.
We want to make sure those are all covered properly.
It's not peddling products or pushing stuff.
It's about helping people doing the right thing.
We do the same thing with the groups.
It doesn't matter if you're a group of two or if you're a group of 5000.
Anything in between.
We're going to do that on everything we do,
on every line of coverage, every every product or service.
But you're able to if again, people are listening
to this all over the country, they're they're
watching me on the on the YouTube channel or on the podcast and they're going,
well, we have an association, but we don't do any of that.
And you gave that story earlier
about membership declining and how when you turned it back around
the associations have to be able to offer a reason for somebody to be there.
Right? Right.
And is that what you're helping them do?
We drive that value?
We're basically bringing,
fortune 500 type benefits solutions,
complete benefit solutions to small group and medium sized groups.
Doesn't matter the size of your group.
We're going to do all we can to provide the best value for all your benefits.
Unlike they've ever seen before with any other firm.
It's just we do. You’ve got a commitment to excellence and customer service.
We have a passion for it.
We truly care about our customers.
I guess you could say we're old school.
Yeah.
We do what we say we're going to do.
At 76 years of age that’s something.
There's nothing wrong with old school folks.
Well I’m 60. So I'm with you.
You got a long way to go, pal.
You're very young. And then we have these two over here.
The youngsters? Very youngsters. Absolutely.
If you want information, you want to reach out to John.
You maybe you'd like to explore some of this.
The way to do it is to give him a call.
314-494-7860.
So there's a reason he's on here today is to educate you.
That's why we do these shows to educate you on what you can do to help yourself.
If you're in an association, you want to start an association, whatever
the case may be, these people are experts and they're happy to help you.
And if you're an employer with a small group or a large group,
they're right there, okay?
And they're offering solutions you're not going to find
on a lot of the large carriers.
So it's significantly different the way they do it.
Once again, the phone number 314-494-7860.
So when we come back from the break I'm going to talk about what do you do
if you've got W-2 employees, but you've also got 1099 employees.
We'll talk about that.
Stay tuned.
We'll be right back after the break here on America's Healthcare Advocate,
broadcasting coast to coast across the USA.
Welcome back.
You're listening to America's Healthcare Advocate show broadcasting coast to coast
across USA here on the HIA Radio Network.
Got a question?
Send me an email.
AmericasHealthcareAdvocate.com.
We're happy to answer all of them.
And thanks to all of you in the listening audience.
As I said in the opening monologue,
608,000 people viewing that podcast and on YouTube.
It's kind of surprising.
But we do thank all of you.
In studio with me today John Kuhlmann of the Kuhlmann Group.
Also Lauren Broyles, who is his vice president of operations, and Josh Banwart,
who is a financial advisor.
We're talking about how they deal with not only groups, but associations.
Because they're uniquely positioned to help associations.
He's got 750,000 people on the association plans right now.
They're working with us over at Detego on the GigCare program
through our Population Science Management platform.
These are things they're doing that are innovative.
You're not seeing it out there from other brokers.
So let's just start with that.
I've got a company.
It's a trucking company.
They’ve got 4000 drivers, 400 of those are 1099.
They had no benefits for them because you can't put them on health insurance plans.
Okay. Because they're 1099.
They came to us, we put the GigCare plan in place.
They put together a little bonus program to kind of offset
the cost with their drivers based on the number of miles they drove.
They were thrilled because all of a sudden the drivers had health benefits.
Okay. Through the GigCare program.
So talk about how you deal with companies
that have a double sided payroll like 1099 W-2.
John.
So I would add that with the GigCare, not only do they have benefits,
but they have quality benefits that are affordable.
You know, we had
our other podcast that we did about the NHRA
and, Kenny Delco, our driver of the GigCare car.
He, basically explained how one of his good friends,
his ACA rates were going to go up to $2,700.
I remember this, yeah.
And, through GigCare, he can cover himself and his wife for $1,290
instead of $2,700 and really have quality, better program.
So we have that available at the GigCare program.
And we always look at that
for every association to put it in place for them.
Or if there's a company that has 1099 people that aren't covered,
we look at adding that for them to drive that value
to help their members out, because if they don't help them,
some of them may have to leave to go elsewhere.
I know from a lot of our clients, we have several trucking companies
that they have trouble retaining their drivers
because they're competing against Amazon and all the other big companies,
so they have to offer those benefits.
And that's where GigCare is a wonderful solution.
If they do have W-2 and 1099 drivers, right.
But that's any company that has that.
We can do that for any company doesn't have to be trucking.
But we also have a group carrier that well, it's a TPA.
TPA stands for third party administrator and they will insure 1099 members.
Now when you insure a 1099 member on a group plan,
you cannot contribute towards the cost of their insurance to keep it
separate.
Right.
Because you can't have that employee employer relationship.
So the member will have to pay for the cost of their insurance, but
they are just another class of employees within the group plan.
It's very, very powerful, works really well.
And typically that carrier,
that TPA is really one of the best TPA's in the country.
They offer great solutions.
They do things to keep the cost of health care down.
We have a lot of groups with them
that are going on their third year, with no rate increase at all.
And, one of the groups actually got a rate decrease in their third year.
That's highly unusual. totally unusual, right?
And we still shop them out. Right?
Even though that they're getting that we still shop them out to make sure
that they're getting the best value for the dollar,
because health care is the second or third most expensive line item.
Like I said, that any any company has.
So Lauren,
I was talking to somebody the other day and we were talking about customer service
and he said, Cary, he said the word service has gone out of customer service.
I know you guys, you get to handle all that. Yes.
So talk about your approach to customer service, how it's different
and how when some you know, it's not if it's when they have a claims
problem because inevitably say a hospital codes a visit wrong.
They do this, they do that.
And then somebody gets a balance bill.
So talk about how you deal with customer service issues Lauren.
Absolutely.
So we definitely pride ourselves in our customer service.
If you're a business owner especially, you know, you're working 24/7
around the clock.
When 5:00 hits, our phones don't stop ringing.
So we're around the clock service.
Because when you do have a problem and is an emergency, like you're saying
with a claims problem, we answer, we don't.
You're there to solve, help solve the problem.
Yeah.
When there is an emergency, we're here to help solve the problem.
And we're here to help you get to the right person to solve your problem.
So we're answering around the clock on the weekends.
Believe it or not, that's amazing.
Yes. Yeah. Try doing that at one of the major
carriers, folks and see what you get, okay.
Not going to happen. Not going to.
That's one of the reasons why you are successful.
What you do is because you've got people like Lauren. Exactly.
For you there has to be personal care for these folks.
Lauren is, she has the,
work ethic of somebody who's 40 or 50 years old.
She literally and she's only 19.
She sure looks 19.
She is absolutely amazing.
And, one of the reasons why we just don't
lose clients is because of our customer service.
We have most of the clients that we've ever picked up from 36 years ago.
And, keep them.
And then the ones we add, we keep them to.
The only time we really ever lose
a client is when they get bought up by another company, typically,
and the new owner comes in and just gives it to their guy.
We just don't lose it normally on any type of issue.
We've never had a customer service issue. So we're wrapping up here.
We got another two minutes left on the show.
What message you want to give to people that may be considering.
Hey, I've got an association.
We've got membership issues.
We have no health benefits. What do you want to say to them?
So we bring a complete, package of benefits to all the members,
for everything that they, they may have from a need standpoint.
And we literally look at everything tailored to their needs.
Right?
Unlike most associations, it'll just try to put it in like a group plan for groups.
We literally look at group options, but they're the individual group options
for each group, no matter the size, and same thing for individuals.
And then we have Josh to help out with any type of advisory stuff too.
They're kind of one step above,
the basic benefit would be the deferred compensation.
Right.
This is the conversation about attraction and retention.
Those are both important pieces of key employees.
And so how do we make sure somebody doesn't leave.
And this is a whole thread to pull on.
How do we make sure somebody doesn't leave.
But we also, don't give up equity or control in our company.
What's what's that middle ground.
And that's something that we're working a lot on, especially the Kuhlmann Group.
That's how you keep good people. Yeah.
You go through all the trouble to get somebody that’s really good.
And the guy down the street says, hey, you know what?
I'll give you 20% more if you come down here.
When you lose those people.
I mean, I just saw this morning the Berkshire
Hathaway's losing one of the number one people.
They're going over to Morgan Stanley.
So even the big guys lose them.
So what, we typically tell new groups when we start working with them is that,
we usually can save them 20
to 35% off of their, health insurance premiums.
So that's just that, the ancillary it's very common.
It's about the same number. We can't guarantee it. Right.
But that is typically the value that we drive.
We do the same thing again on the ancillary.
Usually we are driving better benefits at a substantial savings.
Then we're easily able to keep those premiums level and flat.
No matter what we're always going to do
what we should do to keep your benefits as strong as we can for your group.
You know, I don't put people on this show.
I don't believe in, I don't put people and products
on this show that I don't use or I don’t service.
These people work with us at Detego.
They are using our GigCare program through Population Science Management.
They offer a host of other solutions.
If you're in any way interested in what they can do.
If you're an association, a small group, a large group,
reach out to them and they would be happy to help.
You can call John at 314-494-7860.
314-494-7860.
Thank you all three of you for doing this.
I have to do some more of these.
sounds great Cary, thank you for having us.
And now I leave you with this thought
from Albert Einstein, the one who follows the crowd,
they usually get no further than the crowd.
The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been.
Remember friends, the funny thing about life
it's refused to accept anything but the very best.
You most often get it.
Thank you for listening to America's Healthcare Advocate Show.
Broadcasting coast to coast across USA.
Goodbye America.