The pandemic brought more awareness to our crumbling healthcare system, with many hoping to see sweeping reforms as America battled the pandemic. Unfortunately, it did not happen, and it does not seem it will be happening any time soon.
One reason is due to America’s political system, which tends to have backroom deals to keep the healthcare system unchanging. In Steven Brill’s book America’s Bitter Pill, the broken system was looked at in further detail, and provided a shocking read for many who read it. Carl Schuessler’s inspiration for founding Mitigate Partners came after reading the Time Magazine article by Steven Brill, America’s Bitter Pill, which uncovered America’s broken healthcare system. At the time it was the longest article ever published by Time Magazine. The article gave fuel to Schuessler’s frustrations of being unable to help his clients with their healthcare costs using traditional carrier approaches. He also became aware of many other advisors/consultants who were trying to reform the healthcare system.
Schuessler has over 30 years of experience when it comes to consulting and financial services. His goal, as described is to treat his client’s money like “his own,” helping him to empathize and come to the best way to save money. He accomplishes the goal of better healthcare through his business, Mitigate Partners.
The “Outlandish” Healthcare System
Mitigate Partners is a group of independent consultants who help contain the costs of healthcare for employers and helps employees get the best benefits for less. Currently, Mitigate Partners has 29 locations from the east coast to as far west as Nevada with many more to come. After reading the article by Brill, Schuessler created The FairCost Health Plan which is one of the many tools used by Mitigate Partners. The goal of it is to cut any unnecessary costs for employers and to make the process, transparent, and easier. When creating the plan, Schuessler used his frustration in the “outlandish” healthcare system to create a cohesive way to attack the establishment.
Changing Healthcare Spending
Many of the Mitigate Partners are members of the Health Rosetta ecosystem, who are focused on accelerating fixes to the American healthcare system that are “simple” and “non-partisan.”. The goal was to create a group focused on providing benefits while cutting spending by up to 30 percent. In some cases, Mitigate Partners may be able to help employers save even more.
Mitigate Partners sees building a healthcare plan like building a house, with each savings component of their plan being a brick. Starting with strong foundational components such as Direct Primary Care, additional savings components (bricks) are added to create a customized plan for each employer that protects their employees while concurrently cutting the cost for construction. One way it’s done is to help each employer actively manage their plan by stopping the reliance on passive management by the bigger names in healthcare and instead create a personalized healthcare model.
On their website, they have many case studies of employers who saved money by using Mitigate Partners. One of them, DeSoto Memorial Hospital, managed to cut their healthcare costs by 54 percent. Another client, The Gasparilla Inn & Club, saved $1.8 million or 34 percent in the span of three years, with the employees receiving closer, more efficient healthcare by removing all barriers to care with no deductibles and little to no out of pocket cost.
Mitigate Partners is a “consortium” of independent consultants countrywide helping to create a vast knowledge base. Mitigate Partners sees the fight to transform the health insurance delivery model to be a collaborative effort and not something to be mired by what they call “legacy thinking,” using older methods of managing healthcare.
Think Outside the “BUCAH Box”
Schuessler also said any company can join them, and all they need is to have “a little courage” and to look outside the “BUCAH box.”
Insurance carriers referred to in the benefits consulting field as BUCAH, which stands for the big five health insurance providers: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, UnitedHealthcare, Cigna, Aetna, and Humana. Mitigate’s goal is to help employers realize there are more options, and these options do not mean sacrificing
quality, savings, or access. In many cases, employers can save money while simultaneously providing better benefits by looking outside the establishment and implementing other transitional solutions.
Mitigate Partners is changing healthcare, offering new alternatives outside of the main big five. They change how coverage happens and will help people who need healthcare get the benefits they deserve.
For employers looking to get affordable healthcare and those who are sick of being mired down by current insurance companies, it could provide a worthwhile solution to the healthcare crisis in America.
