HR and Executives' Guide to Employee Benefits

Donovan Pyle
  • 5.0 (1)
  • MANAGEMENT

If you are an HR professional, executive, or a small business owner/operator and you're struggling with employee benefits, this is the podcast for you. Health Compass Consulting's CEO, Donovan Pyle, is a leading expert in methods that can be used to cut costs while improving your employees' healthcare experience. This podcast can help you understand the ins and outs of employee benefits and healthcare so you can cut out waste expenditures and procure better healthcare and targeted benefits for your team!

  1. Intro To TBA - Total Benefits Assessment

    04/16/2025

    Intro To TBA - Total Benefits Assessment

    I’m Donovan Pyle, the founder of Health Compass Consulting and the author of “Fixing Healthcare: How Executives Can Save Their People, Their Business, and the Economy.” Throughout my years as a consultant helping employers maximize the return on their healthcare and benefits investments, I noticed that most employers didn’t have a framework for understanding if their benefits programs were getting better or worse. As a result, they often overpaid for benefits by about $4,000 per employee per year, because they didn’t have an easy way to identify opportunities, set goals, and develop roadmaps to achieve them. And this left them rudderless in a sea of opportunities — without any clear direction in sight. Having witnessed employers waste valuable time and resources hoping that “something” would stick, my team and I decided to develop a simple framework that would help us and our clients improve the strategic planning that is essential for benefits optimization. After months of brainstorming, we developed the “Total Benefits Assessment” — a framework for continuous improvement. In it, we break down the value equation of a benefits program into 7 key categories of value. They include… Strategic planning — How does your benefits program support your human capital strategy and broader business objectives? Cost Control - Is your company effectively managing its healthcare supply chain? Employee Engagement - Are your employees using the benefits you’re investing in? Employee Satisfaction - Do your employees like and appreciate the benefits you offer? Benefits Administration - Is your HR team leveraging technology to reduce administrative work and complexity? Benefits Compliance - Is your organization keeping up with Federal and State laws? Broker Performance - Does your broker know what they’re doing, and are they financially incentivized to help you achieve your goals? Companies that have a framework for improvement make more money, have healthier – productive teams, and have more fun. I believe that what we measure gets improved, and if you’d like to see how your company is doing in these 7 categories of value, I invite you take the “total benefits assessment” so you can evaluate how you’re doing and identify opportunities for improvement. Spend a few minutes answering 25 simple questions and get instant feedback on how your program is performing. From there, you’ll be invited to download a free copy of my book “Fixing Healthcare”, or join a waitlist to meet with my team of certified employee benefits experts. Until next time, make it a great day.

    3 min

  2. 11/05/2024

    Introduction to A.P.I.M. from Health Compass

    To build your dream house, you need a great architect, a general contractor, and subcontractors. The same principle applies to employee benefits programs, which is why we created “Assess, Procure, Implement, Manage” (APIM) at Health Compass Consulting. APIM is the data-driven process that helps employers maximize the return on their benefits investment so they can improve the financial and physical health of their organization and achieve their business objectives. APIM is a key reason why Health Compass clients save, on average, $1,856 per employee per year, while enjoying better coverage and access.

    12 min

  3. 09/19/2024

    Introduction to Employee Benefits

    Are you a busy executive frustrated by the complexities of employee benefits? Are you tired of industry jargon, excuses, and fluff? Join us for our weekly event, "Introduction to Employee Benefits for Busy Executives." In this fast-paced session, you'll gain a clear understanding of the employee benefits landscape and how to maximize the return on your benefits investment. Why HR and Finance teams from mid-size companies should attend: ● Increase Clarity - discover who does what and why within the benefits landscape. ● Increase Control - discover strategies for managing costs while delivering more value to employees. ● Increase Confidence - discover the process needed to make change happen. Take advantage of this opportunity to gain valuable insights from leading employee benefits consultant Donovan Pyle, CEO of Health Compass Consulting. Register today for our weekly event, "Introduction to Employee Benefits for Busy Executives." https://www.linkedin.com/events/introductiontoemployeebenefitsf7239994695043485697/theater/ By clicking “attend”, Linkedin will notify you when we go live on Wednesdays at Noon ET so that all you have to do is listen in while you’re eating lunch. About Donovan Pyle: While working on the carrier and brokerage sides of the employee benefits industry, Donovan Pyle identified a fundamental misalignment in the market: Brokers make more money when their clients' costs go up, and this undermines their ability to maximize the return on an employer’s benefits investment. The problem inspired Donovan to develop and found one of the first fee-based, carrier-agnostic employee benefits consulting firms in 2018. By working directly for employers instead of vendors, Donovan’s firm — Health Compass Consulting — escapes the financial conflicts of interest that prevent employers from fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility or maximizing the return on their benefits investments. Today, Health Compass's clients have anywhere from 100 to 10,000 employees, and their average client saves $1,856 per employee per year -- with better coverage. Just as importantly, their employees live happier, healthier lives because of the financial stability Health Compass services create. Pyle is a Senior Advisor to Validation Institute, where he chairs the Certified Health Value Professional (CHVP) advisory board. He is one of a handful of consultants in the U.S. who holds the highest certification and designation in the employee benefits industry and has also earned the top certification from the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) - Senior Certified Professional. His writing can be found in Yahoo Finance, SHRM, Seeking Alpha, and many other national publications. He can be reached at donovan@healthcompassconsulting.com.

    31 min

  4. 06/12/2024

    Case Study: Champion Solutions Group

    ✅This is how I saved my first client, Champion Solutions Group, $284,000 on healthcare...if Health Compass Consulting worked for insurers, there would be no reason to do this.    I won the business from one of the largest brokerage firms in the country --- even though I had ZERO employees and started my business two weeks before.     Champion's team had 3 issues with the former firm:    1. The broker wasn't disclosing all forms of compensation paid to them by vendors...this meant that the broker financially gained from Champion's losses. ❌    2. The broker didn't clearly outline their scope of services, so the client wasn't sure who was supposed to do what. ❌    3. Their broker wasn't bringing any innovative ideas to the table that might reduce their growing healthcare expenses. ❌    By carving commissions and carrier bonuses out of the client's insurance products --- and replacing them with my transparent fee and LOI --- the client knew that I was working for their interests --- not against them.    This should be the minimum criteria for selecting a benefits firm, but it's amazing how few employers require this payment model.   Since my newly formed benefits firm was free to have an agnostic perspective on the entire marketplace of strategies and solutions, discovery and education were the focus of our first year with the client.    With so many choices, how can you possibly know what's right for a client until you've conducted a formal discovery process??? We planned the work...and then worked the plan.    After considering a wide range of options, we moved the client to a partially self-funded plan with the help of Andrea Brokamp, MBA of East Coast Underwriters, LLC. After getting the first claim reports, we saw that the group was overpaying for a few specialty drugs that cost about $80,000/year.    With the help of Paul Pruitt and SHARx, LLC, we were able to get these same drugs for about 40%-50% less.    These activities resulted in the following:    1. The employees had stronger coverage.    2. The company saved over $284,000 compared to what it would have spent if it had continued with the big-box brokerage firm.    3. After 34 years, Champion Solutions Group exited for a multiple that the owners were thrilled with.    Lesson:    ✅Alignment is a prerequisite for eliminating the $300 billion that employers overpay for healthcare each year.    ✅If you're not working with a fee-based benefits consultant, you have no chance of realizing these gains.    ✅"Fee-based" means that the firm does not accept compensation from health plan vendors in any form (i.e., bonuses/overrides etc). Since 2021, all forms of compensation are required to be disclosed to employers, but most brokers have ignored these regulations because they know they don't create nearly enough value to justify their income.    The sooner HR and Finance professionals understand these dynamics, the sooner organizations and individuals will have the economic stability needed to pursue their dreams. ☮

    5 min

  5. 12/03/2021 · VIDEO

    Why do traditional benefits brokers make more when their clients costs go up?

    HR and Executives' Guide to Employee Benefits

    1 min

  6. 12/03/2021 · VIDEO

    What's the Problem with Traditional Health Plans?

    HR and Executives' Guide to Employee Benefits

    2 min

  7. 12/03/2021 · VIDEO

    What strategy should businesses use to reduce healthcare costs?

    HR and Executives' Guide to Employee Benefits

    1 min

  8. 12/03/2021 · VIDEO

    What are the root causes of health insurance inflation?

    HR and Executives' Guide to Employee Benefits

    1 min
See All (17)

About

If you are an HR professional, executive, or a small business owner/operator and you're struggling with employee benefits, this is the podcast for you. Health Compass Consulting's CEO, Donovan Pyle, is a leading expert in methods that can be used to cut costs while improving your employees' healthcare experience. This podcast can help you understand the ins and outs of employee benefits and healthcare so you can cut out waste expenditures and procure better healthcare and targeted benefits for your team!

Information