The Edelheit Experience: Recent Episodes
Jonathan Edelheit
Welcome to the experience that's dedicated to providing you with insights from some of the greatest minds in healthcare, employer benefits, corporate wellness, medical travel, and more.
Join us to learn about some of the most innovative surgeries being performed in plastic surgery reconstruction, from micro nerve surgery to repair paralysis, such as pudendal neuralgia, brachial plexus, and phrenic nerve conditions. Discover how one patient went from being on a breathing machine to running a marathon with Dr. Elkwood just six months later. ARSA discusses these medical miracles they are pioneering, how they are going global, and how many patients and doctors are unaware that such results are possible. ARSA’s rockstar doctor team is giving patients from around the globe a second chance at life. Learn about their new affiliation program with surgeons from abroad, aimed at elevating healthcare worldwide through their training programs. From hospital partnerships to life-changing procedures like phrenic nerve reconstruction, this episode dives into the real work happening behind the scenes. ARSA also shares how they joined Better by MTA, a long-term exclusive partnership between Mastercard and the Medical Tourism Association, to revolutionize the industry and make healthcare even more accessible than it is today.
Wellness is a crucial aspect of everyone’s life and, in turn, a key indicator of their performance and productivity in other parts of their lives. However, many organizations still see the workforce and the health of a workforce as mutually exclusive factors, offering generic wellness programs that do not effectively capture the health needs of their workforce.
In this episode of the Edelheit Experience, Dr. Richard Safeer talks about weaving wellness into the very fabric of work. Dr. Richard Safeer, the Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Wellbeing for John Hopkins Medicine, discusses what well-being culture is and how it is at variance with conventional workplace wellness models, and what employers must do to rethink wellness culture.
Dr. Safeer, shares insights from his years of experience in medical practice and in the wellness space, providing recommendations to business owners and employers about remodeling their wellness programs to serve employees’ real wellness needs.
There has never been a more urgent time to rethink wellness than now. There is a strong need in the workplace for a healthier and more supportive corporate culture now more than ever. Employees are tired of the clinical approach to wellness and their organization s rolling out wellbeing initiatives that do not touch their needs or solve their problems.
Joining us in this episode of the Edelheit Experience are Natalie and Rebecca Johnson, co-founders of ViDL solutions, helping organizations build stronger and more precise structures and initiatives to help their employees thrive. Rebecca, the company’s Chief Operating Officer, and Natalie, Chief Visionary Officer takes a deep dive into why employee wellness programs fail and what e employers might be doing wrong.
Learn as Natalie and Rebecca share deep insights into what matters more to employees and an organization in regard to wellbeing and health, and how using Maslow’s pyramid of needs, they explain how meeting employees' most important wellbeing needs may be the key to solving the wellbeing question.
In this episode of the Edelheit Experience, Tom Vertich, one of the leading experts in the Benefits space, discusses innovative approaches to employee benefits and optimizing healthcare initiatives for your employees. Tom, who is the Director of Total Rewards at Team Car Care, discusses point solutions he is initiating in the organization, and how effective communication of these benefits can drive engagement and positive healthcare outcomes.
Many employees say the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic have been the most stressful time of their careers, and this statement is not far-fetched. Job losses, pay cuts, fear of getting fired, and the general anxiety that comes with the word “COVID-19” has cast intense mental health stress upon nearly all of us. These events have renewed the conversation around building resilience in organizations and helping employees achieve mindfulness and mental well-being through workplace benefits.
In this episode of the Edelheit experience, Donna Fernandez, Senior Manager, Benefits Administration for Houston Independent School District shares her passion to help employees achieve physical wellness, resilience, and mental wellbeing. Donna has a track record with wellness programs and has several years of experience helping employees understand and utilize their benefits to improve their health and the quality of their lives and those of their family members.
Donna also is a member of the Mental Health First Aid Program, which brings people and resources together to further the task of mental health awareness and stomp out the stigma that is generally a barrier to mental health.
Financial stress is at an all-time high. With the rising cost of everything and the economic downswing induced by the coronavirus pandemic, employees are scrambling for all the money they can get to keep body and soul together.
For many employees, the last two-and-a-half years have been the most stressful time in their careers. However, this disruption has only revealed the inadequacies of the workplace wellness architecture. How have employers contributed to this financial crisis and what can employers do to tackle this burden?
Jonathan Edelheit, Chairman of Global Healthcare Resources sat with leading Benefits expert Robert Kelley, PHR, CBP, CPM, a HR Benefits Consultant with the North Carolina Office of State Human Resources, to hear Robert’s thoughts about the current financial crisis as well as how it directly affects employee overall health, and, in turn, workplace productivity. In this interview, Robert also shares brilliant ideas for remodeling employee financial wellness programs and strategies for boosting employee participation.
Robert Kelley has more than 25 years of experience in benefits, having served in many roles including as Benefits counselor at North Carolina State University and Benefits Analyst with the North Carolina State Retirement System at the North Carolina Department of State Treasurer.
Employees across the country have taken more control of their lives, making sharp changes to their health habits and lifestyles in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Admittedly, people are now more self-aware and have realized how their daily health choices influence their quality of life. This paradigm shift has also changed how these workers view work and the workplace.
While many business leaders were caught unawares by this unprecedented shift, a number of them are beginning to take proactive steps to resetting their wellness programs to meet their workers where they need it most.
Jonathan Edelheit, Chairman and co-Founder of Global Healthcare Resources sits with Laura Kirk, Director of Total Rewards at Radial, to discuss the problems with the current workplace wellness ecosystem and framework as she shares insights into how employers can rethink wellness and remodel their programs to promote a thriving and healthy workforce.
Listen in to learn from Laura’s wealth of experience working with several organizations across various industries, establishing and building viable wellbeing structures for a thriving workforce.
More and more Americans are faced with the twain challenge of rising healthcare costs and the increasing burden of chronic diseases. With about 6 in 10 adults in the United States suffering from a chronic illness, including diabetes and heart disease, there is a clear need to rethink approaches to tackling this burden and optimizing healthcare outcomes.
Jessica Lea, Pharm.D., EMBA, BCPP, Founder and CEO of Tria Health, in this interview speaks about integrating the pharmacist into healthcare delivery and leveraging pharmacists’ expertise in key clinical care decisions to optimize patient care outcomes.
Tria Health delivers pharmacist-led chronic disease management, leveraging collaborations among the three players in healthcare delivery: the pharmacist, patient, and healthcare provider, to optimize care outcomes and reduce overall healthcare costs.
Jessica emphasizes the need to incorporate the expertise of pharmacists in optimizing patient prescriptions and care plans to improve outcomes and eliminate needless prescriptions and avoidable complications.
Learn the secret 6+2 “Healthy Choice Program” that Cleveland Clinic developed and launched for their employees that transformed employee health and well-being, resulting in over $1 billion saved for the organization and over $300 million in employee pockets. In one of the most inspiring stories we have ever done, discover how a top-down leadership approach and big incentives entirely transformed the DNA of the organization and employees into one of resiliency and unmatched well-being. Tune in to see how Cleveland Clinic increased participation in their program from 12% to 75% and how they achieved these excellent outcomes.
Lee Lewis is Chief Strategy Officer at the Health Transformation Alliance (HTA), a coalition of 60 large, household name employers. The HTA is responsible for around 5 million employees, spends close to $30 billion dollars on healthcare annually, and is entirely owned by its employers. Lee was previously a consultant at Gallagher and ran a large employer practice and innovation lab.
Lee is a nationally-renowned healthcare expert who sheds light on his rigorous yet simple process of sorting through 330 solutions across 86 categories.
Listen to discover the importance of holding employee healthcare to the same standards as other business units, why sharing knowledge to solve different problems is necessary, and why benefits professionals should be incentivized to take risks and rewarded for delivering results. Learn why diversity of thought is important in the context of benefits management to improve ROI and create better solution providers.
Mitch Martens is the Senior Wellness Manager for Population Health at Northern Arizona Healthcare (NAH). He has a background in psychotherapy and prides himself in the ethos of NAH, encapsulated by their motto, "Improving health, healing people."
In this episode, Mitch discusses his affinity for mentorship, the difference between wellness and well-being, and his passion for inclusive and collaborative well-being. He sheds light on some of the creative programs currently in use at NAH, including wellness ninjas and bereavement boxes, while also suggesting nifty ways to increase employee engagement and leverage the importance of wellness in a post-pandemic world.
Mitch, a firm believer in authentically caring about the health, safety, and well-being of both customers and employees, also reveals how the unprecedented Global Healthcare Accreditation For Business Program has helped NAH solidify and communicate its story of caring for its people.
Laura Putnam is a founder and the CEO of Motion Infusion. A former high school teacher, competitive gymnast, dancer, and public policy worker, Laura brings her sensibility as an educator to corporate wellness and well-being.
In this episode, Laura explains the concept of wellness privilege and how the perfect storm of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests have awakened organizations to social issues and well-being. She discusses why well-being looks different for each individual, how bosses can increase the chances of their employees having heart attacks, and why now is the perfect time for organizations to incorporate wellness as a critical workplace safety consideration.
Listen to discover why employees won't participate in wellness programs and why wellness programs aren't capable of solving culturally engrained facets of a given workplace, such as toxicity and burnout.
Timestamps:
00:14 - How did Laura Putnam get involved in the well-being space, and what is she currently doing?
01:06 - What does wellness privilege mean?
03:28 - Why is the concept of wellness privilege now being acknowledged?
08:07 - How important are managers in the workplace?
10:45 - How difficult is it to get managers to realize the importance of their role?
12:35 - How did Laura's Managers on the Move program start?
14:51 - Where do many companies go wrong in offering well-being programs to their employees?
17:18 - How can organizations balance high performance with employee well-being?
19:50 - How can organizations use The Great Resignation to rethink wellness and productivity?
21:35 - How do you determine which companies are just talking and which companies actually enacting change?
24:12 - How important are programs like the Global Healthcare Accreditation For Business program in validating a company's commitment to its employees?
27:37 - The new norm around well-being and mental health.
33:31 - Some closing thoughts.
Quotes:
"We have not paid enough attention to those external factors that relate to the world of DE&I, things like gender, race, age, and religion, that really shape our capacity as individuals to be able to make the healthy choice."
"There is a willingness now for organizations and their leaders to begin to entertain bigger, more systemic questions around the pursuit of well-being."
"Whether or not well-being is part of a manager's job description, the manager has everything to do with the extent to which their team members are well or not."
"You have a choice to make. Are you going to stick your head in the sand and pretend like this wellness and well-being stuff doesn't matter, and it's up to the individuals to do it themselves, and it's up to HR to create these wellness programs? Or are you going to put on your cape and become that agent of change, that multiplier of well-being for your team?"
Dr.John Abramson is a physician who is a clinical faculty member at Harvard Medical School. His areas of expertise include public health policy, and he has a special interest in the pharmaceutical industry in America. He has authored two books on this subject, with his most recent title, 'Sickening: How Big Pharma Broke American Health Care and How We Can Repair It,' published in 2022. He is also an expert in national litigation with respect to the drug industry.
In this astonishing episode, Dr. Abramson reveals how the pharmaceutical industry skews data to mislead the American public, doctors, and the rest of the medical industry. He details how pharmaceutical companies control the narrative by funding research, owning the data, and using powerful marketing strategies. These efforts create an institutionalized bias towards pricey drugs, which in some cases are 200 times more expensive than alternatives that are equally or less effective. Whether you're an employer, medical professional, or an American resident, prepare to be shocked at how drug companies have gradually taken control of the systems and institutions that are meant to regulate the pharmaceutical industry and protect Americans.
Timestamps :
00:43 - The true costs of pharmaceuticals in the employer wellness space.
01:46 - Why does the American public need to start taking their health into their own hands?03:46 - How do pharmaceutical companies use marketing and publicity to seem altruistic?04:53 - How did Dr. Abramson become a national thought-leader on the pharmaceutical industry and how do companies obscure data?
24:32 - How do pharmaceutical companies bypass the peer-review system?
28:19 - How do drug companies favor more expensive treatments that aren't always more effective?
27:36 - How do employers navigate through the pharmaceutical industry?
01:02:59 - What responsibility do doctors bear in this situation?
01:06:22 - An optimistic closing note.
Veetahl Eilat-Raichel is the CEO and co-founder of Sorbet, a financial and human resources technology company. Sorbet is a startup disrupting paid time off (PTO) by offering employees and employers ways to maximize their efficiency around unused PTO. Eilat-Raichel has worked at multinational banks in Switzerland, Israel, and the United States and was most recently the Chief Marketing Officer at Isracard, the largest credit card and payment company in Israel.
This conversation on the Edelheit Experience dissects the intersection between PTO, employee wellness, and employer performance. Find out why the utilization of PTO benefits employees and employers, why 4-day work weeks won't inherently change the corporate culture on its own, and how the explosion of remote working can hinder much-needed rest.
According to Eilat-Raichel, each year, US employers carry over more than $272 billion in unused vacation days, an equivalent of 900 million days that could be used to rest, recharge and rejuvenate. Listen to this episode for a brilliantly unique and creative approach to PTO and employee wellness.
Bruce Daisley is a best-selling author whose books "The Joy of Work" and "Eat Sleep, Work Repeat" have received critical acclaim. Daisley has worked for some of the most successful tech companies globally, such as Google and Twitter, and has developed a fascination with workplace culture on his journey as an executive.
This episode of the Edelheit Experience features a deep dive into the connection between culture, employee satisfaction, and productivity. Daisley outlines how creating a positive employee experience leads to stellar customer service, increased creativity, and loyalty to your business.
With an ever-growing body of evidence that organizations with a positive work culture outperform those with unhappy, stressed, and anxious employees, culture is more important than ever. Listen now to discover how you can make culture work for you.
Kate Brown is head of Mercer's Center for Health Innovation and is an expert in managing and improving employee population health through corporate wellness initiatives. Brown also holds a master's degree in kinesiology and a Certified Employee Benefit Specialist (CEBS) designation.
In this episode, Brown discusses the latest trends and disruptive innovations in the employer-sponsored healthcare space. These include the pros and cons of the rapid adoption of digital healthcare solutions, what healthcare will look like in 2030, the threat posed to current virtual care providers by big tech, and the enormous potential of remote patient monitoring (RPM) technology to revolutionize the future of healthcare.
Brown identifies the current state of 'fragmented virtual care' as one of the most pressing concerns in the virtual healthcare space. This phenomenon occurs when an employee receives treatment for several different conditions from separate care providers. Since these conditions are essentially being treated in isolation, employees are at risk of poor outcomes, while duplicate billing can affect employers. The underlying issue is that patient data is siloed, and subsequently, holistic, cost-effective treatment is hindered. Listen to Brown's intuition on solving this problem and others through her fresh mindset.
Heather Saunders is the Director of Infection Control at the Johns Hopkins Office of Population Health. Her background is in nursing and epidemiology, and she holds a Master of Public Health degree. When Saunders isn't performing research at Johns Hopkins and informing our leading decision-makers, she runs her business which assists entities in controlling infectious diseases.
This episode contains expert insights into how businesses can manage COVID-related disruptions, prevent the cessation of operations, and simultaneously ensure stakeholders' safety. Additionally, we learn what is meant by infectivity, the ultimate fate of COVID-19, and how we assess our risk tolerance in the context of the virus.
Saunders also sheds light on a program she helped develop, the Global Healthcare Accreditation (GHA) For Business. This state-of-the-art certification allows companies to show customers and staff alike that they are committed to the health, safety, and wellbeing of all stakeholders.
Listen as Saunders provides her invaluable perspective on the Omicron variant, how to separate the wheat from the chaff when choosing a source of information, and much more.
Julian Treasure is a sound and communication expert whose mission is to help people and organizations to listen better and create healthier and more effective sound, including speaking. He is the author of the books How to be Heard and Sound Business. Collectively, Julian’s five TED Talks have garnered over 100 million views. How to speak so that people want to listen is in the top 10 TED talks of all time. His talks offer actionable insights and strategies for business effectiveness, particularly for those in sales or leadership roles, as well as enriching relationships at work and at home.
His presenting skills and innovative use of sound make his talks visceral and potent experiences that are always highly rated by delegates. In addition to keynote speeches, Julian can also arrange structured training or workshops for your company. Listen in as Julian discusses his fascinating journey into the world of sound, why becoming a better listener makes you a better speaker by default, why listening seems like such an elusive skill, bad habits to eradicate if you want to be a better listener, and how organizations can use listening to benefit all parties.
Shane Green is a world-renowned keynote speaker, television personality, and business magnate who consults global Fortune 500 leaders on customer experience and organizational culture.
Shane is the author of Culture Hacker, which dives deep into Shane’s strategies for cultivating a company culture “that fosters outstanding customer experiences, limits employee turnover, and ensures high performance”.
Listen in as Shane defines the word “culture” as the “collective attitudes” of any group of people, and how a company’s culture is influenced by employee experience. He also speaks on the impact of the pandemic on the workplace and how organizations must respond in the new normal.
Because culture is the coming together of the “hearts and minds” of your people, companies need to learn to go deeper than branded t-shirts and ping pong tables if they want to create a lasting community of high-achievers.
Shane explains how to foster a true sense of belonging in the workplace and how leaders of organizations big and small can show appreciation, acknowledgment, and make each and every single one of their employees feel valued.
Greg Nussbickel is a top-rated elder law and estate planning attorney who has served Southwest Florida for two decades.
His law firm, The Nussbickel, is dedicated to helping seniors with legal issues surrounding health and personal care planning. The firm’s legal team creates strategies for its clients which might include Medicaid planning, veterans benefits, special needs planning, and more.
Listen in as Greg offers his advice to families who have been considering hiring an estate planning specialist, but have hesitated on pulling the trigger. He assures listeners that “it’s so much less intimidating and scary than people think.”
He then explains how companies can take advantage of the ERTC, who exactly can qualify for the tax credit, and why “it’s basically free money on the table.”
Greg also warns against taking advice from anyone (including your accounting firm) but a demonstrated expert in the field such as himself.
To listen to more episodes visit www.EdelheitExperience.com
Terri Dill is an expert in pharmaceutical and Pharmacy Benefit Manager contracts. She is the Principal at Skylight Arcs, a consulting company which focuses solely on employer groups’ PBM contracts.
Despite a good amount of market consolidation taking place in today’s PBM space, competition continues to thrive as many smaller and mid-size options have sprung up for employers to choose from. Nevertheless, there is a confusing array of “games” that these companies play which result in employers losing money without even realizing it.
Pharmaceuticals are almost 50% of the cost of what employers spend towards healthcare, and that number continues to grow rapidly. Pharmacies are being merged with health insurance companies resulting in consolidated and hidden fees. Terri concurs, admitting that the industry “is 100% rigged,” and that “PBMs continue to change the games all the time.”
Because of this, working with many Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers (PBM’s) can be seen as dealing with the Mafia or stepping into a casino, where the odds are stacked against you and everywhere you turn you are charged a “vig.”
Listen in as Terri discusses all the hidden tricks PBMs use to take as much money as they can from you as an employer. She explains how you can save between 8% to 27% a year on that 50% of your healthcare spend. This can result in savings ranging from 4% to 13.5% a year on your total healthcare spend and potentially lower your healthcare costs by almost 100% in the next few years.