Health Transformation Collaborative: A Conversation with Marsh

This episode of Castlight’s Consultant Corner features a discussion between Castlight’s AVP of Alliances, Jan Kaupas, and Marsh’s Agnes Quiggle. Hear them chat about the Health Transformation Collaborative (HTC) and explore how our partnership provides a streamlined, vetted healthcare navigation ecosystem to simplify plan administration and reduce costs for self-insured employers.

Watch the full fifteen minute episode below.

Key Takeaways

• Solves Employer Challenges: HTC brings vetted healthcare point solutions together under one collective purchasing offering managed by Marsh, helping employers eliminate administrative complexity, measure investment value, and lower health plan costs.
• Castlight as the Digital Front Door: Castlight serves as the primary navigation platform within the HTC ecosystem, guiding members to the appropriate care and resources while improving employee engagement, health outcomes, and gaps in care.
• Exceptional Clinical Assessment Rating: A rigorous, assessment conducted by Marsh’s clinical experts awarded Castlight top marks with all green checks, zero areas requiring action, and recognition for sustained long-term member engagement.

Read full episode transcript below:

What is Marsh’s Health Transformation Collaborative?

Jan: Welcome to our first episode of Castlight’s Consultant Corner. My name is Jan Kaupas from the alliances team at Castlight and I manage our national relationship with Mercer, now Marsh, and their health transformation collaborative.

Our topic today is HTC, our partnership, the clinical assessment and the momentum in the marketplace moving forward.

I have the best possible guest for that topic today. I have with me Agnes Quiggle who leads HTC nationally from Marsh. Agnes, thank you so much for making the time today. Certainly appreciate it.

Agnes: Thanks, Jan. Happy to be here. 

Jan: Listen, before we get started, please tell us a little bit more about your background. And then also, tell us some of the new exciting things that are happening now with the new branding for Mercer and Marsh. Everybody’s talking about it. So, why don’t you give us a little bit of background on that as well if you could?

Agnes: Yeah, I’d love to. My role is leading our health transformation collaborative nationally as well as our vendor intelligence platform. So, I spend a lot of time out in the market making sure that we are serving both our clients but also our vendor partners’ needs and being the best partner that we can really be out in the market.

And it’s an exciting time because Marsh is bringing all of our sister companies under the one Marsh brand. We are really focusing on accelerating the impact and creating new opportunities to service our clients as we bring all of our intelligence and all of our resources together. So, I’m excited to see what that will mean for our clients.

Jan: Yeah, I think it’s great. There’s a lot of good things happening over at Marsh and uh really happy for you all what’s going to transform. So, listen before we jump in, we’ve only got about five minutes, so we’ll definitely make them count.

I want to cover three things. What HTC actually is and why employers join, what our two teams have built together over the last couple of years, and of course, some recent proof that it’s definitely working for both of us. So, with that, Agnes, let’s start from the beginning.

For an employer hearing about Health Transformation Collaborative for the first time, whether through consultants, through the HTC leadership, what is it? What’s the problem that they saw for the employers?

Anges: HTC was built by employers for other employers and it was built in partnership with Mercer as really a support engine to make their wishes come true and it was built to solve practical problems.

So three main problems. First there are a ton of point solutions out in the market. How do I know as an employer what is effective? What will work for my organization?

And then second there’s a lot of complexity around contracting, billing and administration of the solution. So how can we make that more effective? And third to answer the question, how do I as an employer really ensure that my investment is providing the right value to my organization?

And so, HTC works with our employer clients to bring vetted healthcare solutions together through one offering. Marsh is managing that ecosystem on their behalf. And importantly, we’re not assembling point solutions together with our clients.

We are evaluating the solutions that can really create measurable value and making sure that they fit into the employer’s broader healthcare offering.

And so at the end of the day, once HTC is in place for an employer, they are going to improve the experience of health care for their members, receive better quality care for their members, get stronger pricing through the group collective purchasing, and then really I think that holy grail delivering meaningful savings to the health plan.

Jan: Yeah, I think that’s definitely that, especially with what’s going on in today’s market with the premium increases. So really improving the cost savings is significant.

How does Castlight fit it?

Jan: Let me ask you this. Where does a navigation and advocacy partner like ourselves kind of sit or fit in that ecosystem that you have at HTC?

Anges: The navigation digital front door component where Castlight fits is really the critical starting place for a member in their healthcare journey. It gives members that one-stop shop, a simple place to start, and then once they’re in and engaged, helps direct them to the right partner, the right resource. It could be a Castlight care guide, could be another resource that the employer offers, and it’s all based on what that individual needs at that time. So it makes the employer’s broader healthcare ecosystem easier to use, helps ensure members are getting connected to the right care at the right time.

And it also helps on the employer side with a much more coordinated way to support employee engagement, improve gaps in care, and improve health care outcomes. So it really is that critical juncture where no matter what a member needs, they’re going to find it through the Castlight front door. 

Jan: That’s fantastic. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I love it. Thank you.

So, we’re coming up now on like two years of you and I working together. I know our partnership has gone a lot deeper than that and I certainly appreciate all the work that you’ve done and the whole HTC team.

I know that when I think about and and tell people anyone that’s evaluating HTC, you know, it just doesn’t it’s just not your normal, you know, program or vendor list, right? We’re in a really strong partnership that you’ve evaluated and done some due diligence on.

And of course now we have a number of clients jointly whether it’s from beginning to end meaning in that process from first meeting to discovery which the HTC leads and consultants all the way through to implementation and bringing on that client. And of course we try to make sure that we get you what that product roadmap looks like so everyone’s up to speed. So our job inside HTC is just really to be one of the preferred navigation advocacy platforms or as you mentioned digital front doors. We love that. And you know for us the member just goes to one place and from there we route them to the right ecosystem partner whether through HTC or through us. 

It’s all about the member and making sure that they can speak to a care guide or a clinical care guide. And that’s really the simplification. I mean Agnes you put it really well. So I appreciate it. So well done.

What is Health Transformation Collaborative’s assessment and audit, and how did Castlight do?

Jan: So listen, I know that this summer we went through, with your clinical team, a real navigation and advocacy assessment and audit. It was a pretty deep dive into what we do and how we do it.

So maybe you could talk a little bit about why HTC does these assessments and why it’s important for you to assess all the vendors that you’re working with.

Agnes: Yes, I love the vendor assessments. They are an absolutely critical part of HTC’s standing due diligence and part of our vendor oversight strategy.

In this way, employers don’t have to audit every vendor themselves. Those are really large projects to undertake. 

Jan: Absolutely. 

Agnes: And so this approach really makes sure that number one members are receiving the highest quality of care and service and also ensures that employers are doing the right things as a health plan sponsor to ensure that they have an optimal return on their investments. And when we do assessments, we’re making sure that vendors are accountable to what they’ve said that they will do.

Evaluate the product quality, assess the member experience, and these are really deep dive reviews where our clinical experts are identifying potential areas of improvement and then over time working directly with our vendor partners to drive those improvements.

Jan: Yeah, that’s great. I mean, ultimately, it’s very important for you to do that when selecting any vendor. So, listen, inquiring minds want to know how did we do?

Agnes: For Castlight specifically. Pretty incredible. We brought in our clinical experts, like I said, to review Castlight’s platform, people, processes, technology. This is not a questionnaire exercise. Our team was doing deep dive into real member cases. It was a two-day long full of live sessions. Yeah.

All of the components were rated satisfactory, green check. Plus, no areas were requiring action, which is honestly just an absolutely amazing result. In terms of a couple of the findings, Castlight has a really experienced bench where every case was handled by a guide who had two or more years of tenure.

The coaches are national board certified. Castlight has NCQA accreditation for health assessments. URAC for safety and data integrity which are two huge achievements. And what really stood out to me was the sustained engagement over every case for multiple plan years.

So not only do you have strong service levels, clear safety protocols, but that sustained member engagement really makes a difference in the long term. Yeah.

And there were two very tiny recommendations found that were really refinements and both were in progress by Castlight before the report was even final. So really a super super assessment result.

Jan: Well, we’re super thrilled and it was just great to meet all the Marsh clinicians and to work with them. It was a long process, but listen, it’s certainly needed and we appreciate all the partnership and the work that goes in behind it.

What’s happening in the benefits market right now?

Jan: So listen, I mean it’s just not us just talking about it, right, Agnes? It’s also the market voting too, right? So, like we just closed up another HTC client together, what I’m super thrilled about.

I won’t name them, but if everybody could picture a global engineering and consulting firm, around 2,000 employees, they’re operating in over a dozen countries with more than one carrier in play. The reasoning was almost a summary of this conversation.

As a matter of fact, you know, give our people one place to go, tie it to the wellness incentives, do something real, let them see the cost and quality before they get the care and make the employer buying process simple.

And I think we did a really good job of that, especially the way that we work together and contract together. We make it very simple and as a matter of fact, coming off of that, we got another lead, a strong lead in play for both of us.

So, we certainly appreciate all the work that the HTC consultants and team does as we work together on any and all of these employer deals. So, thank you. So, what are you hearing from employers right now? What’s driving that, you think, with what’s going on in the marketplace?

Agnes: You know, I think employers are feeling some solution fatigue. We’ve been through years of high cost increases. Based on our recent survey data, there’s no end in sight to the cost increases.

I know we’ve worked together to pull so many levers. There have been mixed results and employers want more connectivity in their ecosystem. They want more confidence that solutions are vetted and clinically overseen by experts and that there’s a really clear value to their organization and their members.

And so the HTC responds by making all of that happen. The ecosystem is easier to navigate, select and contract. There’s a team member overseeing their investment ongoing. And then ideally with a partnership like Marsh and Castlight, it’s easier for employees to use the tools that they’re given and manage their health over time.

Jan: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And we hope that from all of them. So maybe before we kind of wrap up, one last thing. For an employer that’s listening that’s very interested in what we’ve been talking about today, you know who and they’re curious about HTC. What’s the next step that they should take, how do they go about contacting you all and kind of walk us through that process if you could?

Agnes: Yes, so start with your Marsh consultant. The first conversation is a really simple one. What does your population look like? What are your priorities? Where is healthcare creating cost challenges or member friction?

And then from there we can walk through how the HTC’s curated ecosystem can fit without putting a bunch of burden on the employer to assemble to manage and then as an employer you can sleep better at night knowing you’re doing the right thing by having oversight over your investments.

Jan: Yeah, that’s fantastic. So again, any employer that’s thinking about being able to consolidate this, work with Marsh, reach out to your consultant and they’ll get you to the right place at HTC for sure.

Well, again, Agnes, I just want to thank you for the time today and thank you to you, and the entire HTC team. It’s been a great two years. I know that we’re going to continue to drive new business and work very closely together, but most importantly, continue to make a significant impact with self-insured employers throughout the country.

So, if you’re an employer listening out there and this anything that we’ve talked about today sounds like something that you’re running into from a problem perspective, definitely talk to your Marsh consultant about HTC and Castlight today. And thank you very much for listening. 

Agnes: Thank you, Jan, and thanks to all our listeners.