AH093 - Health Benefits that Work for Everyone: Aligning Incentives & Focusing on Members’ Needs, and with Susana Villegas Spillman

Episode 93 of Astonishing Healthcare features Susana Villegas Spillman, who brings over 20 years of health benefits plan management experience to the studio for a discussion about what works, what’s broken, and what employer plan sponsors deal with day in and day out. This “unfiltered perspective” from the plan sponsor’s seat is welcome and timely. If you’re one of the increasingly large percentage of benefits directors, CHROs, CFOs, et al. out there looking to transition from a traditional benefits experience to a new, transparent, aligned, unified model, this episode is for you!
Susana explains how a fragmented system fails members, and while we’ve evolved from the default “call the number on the back of the card” - which directs you to the emergency room - point solutions create more silos, and data is too scattered and stale to drive meaningful change. This forces employers to take control, which leads to her “most astonishing thing,” which is a critical reminder for every benefits leader: “Know what’s in your contracts.”
Episode 93 covers:
- The importance of centering the strategy around long-term goals and member experience (with ruthless accountability).
- The upside of unbundling services from carriers and using independent navigation partners to guide members to high-quality care; why culture fit and flexibility matter when evaluating vendors.
- Why qualitative measures of success offer a better gauge of program effectiveness vs. empty promises of ROI.
- The evolving role of benefits consultants, and how to evaluate consultant relationships.
- The outdated RFP processes and how to run a better RFP.
- GLP-1 coverage for weight loss.
Listen below, or on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube Music!
Transcript
Lightly edited for clarity.
[00:22] Justin Venneri: Hello and thank you for tuning in to another episode of Astonishing Healthcare. This is Justin Venneri, your host and senior director of communications at Judi Health. And I have Susana Villegas Spillman in the studio with me today. This is an exciting one for me. I love these discussions with just pure subject matter experts. And I hope all of our listeners enjoy this episode too, because it's a fresh perspective from a former health plan manager seat at a very large employer. Thanks so much for joining me today, Susana.
[00:48] Susana Villegas Spillman: Thank you. I appreciate the time and you know, I welcome what you just said about me. I feel really excited to be here.
[00:54] Justin Venneri: Good stuff. So just to frame things, there's a funny backstory like we met as a result of some research I was doing back in the day trying to understand a phrase that had really just started to become popular. And it got more popular immediately before and certainly right after the pandemic: point solution fatigue. And we talked about whether folks like Teladoc and Livongo, Progeny, et cetera, et cetera, had what it took to help an employer and their members improve their costs, improve their member experience, improve outcomes. How big was that market opportunity and, you know, who else could be helpful? So there were several discussions about mental health and about other chronic care condition solutions that just led to us staying in touch. And it turns out, you know, [you're] from a smaller town in a suburb of Chicago, I have my Bears hat on. So I know everybody can't see that. But we're very excited that they're at the top of the division here who thought it would be as good of a season as it has been, right?
[01:48] Susana Villegas Spillman: Absolutely. I think we're all flying by the seat of our pants right here.
[01:51] Justin Venneri: Agreed. So you guys aren't here to listen to me talk, but with that backdrop, Susana, tell us a little bit more about your background. You spent over 19 years at Abbott. That's a great run. I mean, what did you do there and how did you work your way up the ladder there?
[02:04] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yeah, well, thank you for that intro a little bit about my background. So, yes, I spent the last just about 20 years at my former employer. Large organization. Prior to that, I was also in another large organization, which I think is where I started with my benefits run when I was at Cardinal Health. I started really focused on recruitment and more of a generalist role, then had the opportunity to go into an expat global mobility position. That really started my experience with healthcare statutory benefits outside of the U.S. From there, you know, I was recruited over to my prior employer also within the expat administration. So I continued to focus my run on just expanding my knowledge on the international component of benefit administration. Really was doing more of international assignment, mobility, statutory benefits, totalization agreements, compliance with the home and host country payroll administration. And then I got an opportunity to come over to the US benefits side.
And that happened around the time that Abbott and AbbVie were splitting their benefits. So it allowed me to have insight into how benefits were really being administered. Because during that time we were tasked with having to form company B and we had to replicate all of our benefits from company A to this new company B. And so that allowed me to really get into the tactics and into the details of plan design and really understanding why we did things. It allowed me the opportunity to grow into the US benefits side and really dig into all of the details, not just of the health medical plan, but the PBM, the life insurance, our case management, what we were doing from an employee perspective, what our relationship was with all of the carriers. And so I spent the last 15 years really being within this role, just evolving and taking the benefits and how we administered things to the next level.
[04:03] Justin Venneri: That's amazing. And that's why you're here. I'm excited to talk to you. I try to focus the content on relatable stuff and to be a little bit entertaining while trying to be educational without being too sales-y. So you guys were not a client of ours and that's okay. As you just described, your experience is much broader. And I always like to talk about more than just pharmacy benefits. So at a high level. When you were going through all that, as things evolved for you, what was your philosophy regarding setting up a comprehensive benefits program? We hear that phrase a lot. If you got the opportunity to lead benefits for a very large organization again today, what data are you going to look at? How are you going to start to tackle that?
[04:39] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yeah, I think for us during that time of transition, we were really looking at what was the member experience at that time. What were our members doing when they engaged with the insurance carrier? And like many of us, we get an ID card, the number on the back of that ID card, probably 99% of the time that you call that number, what are you going to get? "Go to the ER." Right. So as benefits professionals, we would question why we have such high ER utilization. Well, we're navigating people there in the time of need and crisis. We're telling them to go to the back of your ID card, call the nurse line. These nurse lines, they're going to tell you to go to the ER in many of those cases.So I think at that point in time we were really just trying to think through what is the true member experience? When you have these needs, where do you go for information? How are you navigating the details of your plan? What hospital and providers are you being navigated to? So for us during that time we were really taking a look at a more holistic view, right?
Let's take a step back, let's assess what we have within our ecosystem. What's the member experience? Is it truly driving change or are we basically causing our own demise with the experience that we're at? So I think that was the one thing that we were looking at at that point in time. When you ask me, you know, if I were to set up a plan, I'd really look at the details, right? It's like, understand what your plan design is. What are you covering, what are you not covering? What are the resources that you have within your benefit ecosystem and outside of it? You know, what are other resources that you have within your space? Take a look at your data. What is your data telling you about what your members' needs are? But the problem, Justin, is that while we say we're going to look at data, where is our data? Is the biggest question. We've got carrier partners that give us our quarterly data analytics. And if you've got multiple carriers, you've got multiple reports coming in, and then you've got the PBM partnership, right? And that information sits outside, then you've got the plan design.
So, if you've got a traditional plan, it's going to give you some information. If you've got a high deductible plan, you've got some aggregate information coming from two different partners and then all of these reviews are coming at you independently. So you've got silos, right? And so when you're trying to tell the story, what story are you trying to tell? Because you got carrier A giving you experience with that population, you got carrier B coming to you with that population, and then you got the PBM. None of it is collected cohesively. And if you do have a data system, probably going to say most likely your data is about three months old. So you're trying to solve for something immediately, but you're relying on data that sits outside of the space that's lagging, right? So how effective can you really be in the now?
[07:23] Justin Venneri: So we talk a lot about data and access to data and the timeliness of data, normalizing it, analyzing, et cetera. I have so many follow up questions based on that. One just popped into my head is that early experience—I've experienced that, I think everybody has—you know, either a bad experience calling the number on the back of the card so people don't want to call the number on the back of the card, or they just get told to go to the ER or urgent care. That started to change though, right? More recently, I think that's gotten a little bit better, hasn't it? Or is it a misperception just because I'm in an echo chamber here and we talk about customer member service in a different way?
[07:55] Susana Villegas Spillman: For us, it did change. I mean, during that time is when we decided, okay, the number on the back of your ID card is not effective. What's a different solution? And you talked a little bit about how we met, right, and the different point solution that we were talking about way back when. And so we were an early adopter to advocacy and navigation. And so when you ask, has it changed? Yes, it's changing because you've got these advocacy or navigation companies that are coming in that are really partnering with you to take your members along that journey. As benefit professionals, we're experts on the plan, we're experts on the point solution partners that we're bringing in and integrating and the type of experience that we want our members to have, you know, the interconnection that we implement with these point solution partners.
But we're not experts in healthcare, right, as far as what are the resources that are needed at that point in time for that independent individual. It's like every person is different and should have a personalized experience and should really be armed with a navigator that truly understands, takes the time to assess what their needs are during that time and look within the ecosystem of the employer and point them to the right direction. I mean, you get a member that has a cancer journey, we know what the components are within our benefits of what we're going to cover and what we're not within our plan design. We can't help that person assess what the best treatment option is for them. What's the best center of excellence for them. Do they have the capacity to travel? Do they not? All of that takes time and effort and we as employers don't have the internal resources to help our employees do that.
Related Content
- Health Benefits 101: The Importance of a Transparent PBM Model (check out our Health Benefits 101 content)
- Why this benefit leader switched to a more modern, transparent PBM
- AH080 - Health Benefits 101: The Importance of "Smart" Care Navigation, with Andy Kageleiry
- Replay - Unifying Medical and Pharmacy Benefits: The Blueprint for Better Employee Health and Wellness
- AH078 - More About Judi Health™ & the Unified Benefits Experience, with Dr. Sunil Budhrani and Mike Tate
[09:32] Justin Venneri: Yeah. So you need a layer to help guide them alongside the benefit design that makes sense. And if you had to rank cost versus quality, how do you think about that in the current environment? How has that changed over the years?
[09:42] Susana Villegas Spillman: I think historically cost was a big driver. We talked about cost. We're all trying to do things to mitigate our costs. But the reality is when you think about it, quality—if you implement quality or you state things are quality-based, essentially the cost drivers will follow. You're going to start seeing less cost if you're promoting high-quality, efficient treatment for a patient. But when it comes to communications, right, employee communications, anytime you implement a change, the number one thing we always get from employees is, "Why are you doing this? You're doing this because you're trying to drive your costs out." And so, you know, how do employees interpret that is that it's low quality, it's a low-quality value. So I think there has to be a balance. Right. Your decisions should be quality-based just because by nature you're going to end up getting lower costs if you implement that solution appropriately.
[10:36] Justin Venneri: Yeah, it should help. And it sounds like, and if I recall correctly, everything was separate based on what you just said too. You implemented a care navigation overlay to help members. This is my only Judy Health related question. I promise. I don't want to get too salesy. Like I said earlier, would you have ever considered like a unified claims processing platform for administration if it was available previously? I mean a lot of what you said is these things are in silos and we say that a lot. That's why I asked the question.
[11:00] Susana Villegas Spillman: You know, I think if you take a look back, I think all of us employers thought that the full-service carrier model was this, that it had all of these components in place. We thought it had all the components in place. So what was interesting to us is that as we started to peel away from that model, you know, we were assuming that case management, utilization management was appropriately being managed by these large carrier models. So to our surprise, you know, as we started to peel away from it, they were not being appropriately managed. They did have a portion of the population in which some of these nurses were engaged with the members appropriately, but not to the volume that we were seeing that our members were experiencing. I think within one carrier, we thought we had maybe just a little bit over a hundred different cancer cases. Half of that were being managed appropriately. And then we ended up finding out we had over 300 different members that were not engaged.
[11:54] Justin Venneri: Wow.
[11:54] Susana Villegas Spillman: So that was a real reason why we started to peel away. You talked about, yes, all of these silos. We were early adopters to a lot of point solution partners and we were implementing these point solutions into the ecosystem and they were all being managed separately. I think over the past couple of years what we've seen is that some of these point solution partners have started to partner and understand and really leverage their synergies and cohesively manage these like experiences. But it's still difficult. We talked a little bit about data, how you do that, how is the information being tracked? Are even these point solution partners being effective to manage your cost drivers? I think we're seeing more of these models where it's more cohesive, there's more partnerships. I don't know. You know, again, I think there's still a lot to be done within the space to manage your benefits appropriately. But I do think that as employers, you know, the more partners you have within your ecosystem, the more you're able to leverage what your mitigation strategies are, the more control you have. I think if you put all of your apples in one basket, I don't know if you're going to have the flexibility.
[13:01] Justin Venneri: It's interesting to hear you say that because I think often about the various discussions where I've heard 30, 40 different point solutions to cover different things and then to the point you made about consolidation or how there's a lot of overlapping services being offered and then you see, you know, MSK offering some mental health support. And I imagine that having all of those things independent and then trying to put everything into one basket would be challenging. But if you had the flexibility to manage them independently with everything, all the data like a unifying layer, then maybe that could be helpful. And then one thing that comes up a lot too is the person that's helping you or the group that's helping you and working through what options are available for the plan. Working with benefits brokers and consultants. We get asked all the time, how should people approach selecting a health benefits consultant in today's environment? What would you say to that?
[13:50] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yeah, I think the partnership has always been there. Right. I've seen different levels of partnerships with consultants and brokers. You get those brokers that come in and give you these grand ideas. I would call, they're not next-gen brokers. They're pretty much want to give you something on a platter and here it is, you adopt it and then they go away for the year. Then you've got those consultants that are truly partners with you. I think that there's a lot of value there with having the right consultant. But that consultant really needs to have a full understanding, holistic understanding, deep understanding of what your historical practices have been from a strategy perspective. And then also understand all of your benefit offering. It's not just your medical. They have to have a good understanding of maybe some of your leave components or leave benefits. Because oftentimes I see consultants come in, they give you these grand ideas, but it's pretty superficial because they don't understand how some of these mitigation opportunities or suggestions are going to impact other areas of the organization or other areas within the compensation and benefits department.
And so you're implementing solutions that have maybe negative impact in other areas of your business. I think that they just truly need to have an understanding of the full package. And then when I say the historical view, it's like what has come to the table that maybe you guys did not implement? And why? Because sometimes these consultants spin their wheels trying to give you suggestions from an employer perspective, but the employer is very risk adverse. And so you put so much work and effort into coming up with these solutions and then you're cherry-picking the solution that's going to have the least member disruption or member noise. Ultimately you're not going to get to the mitigation items that you had basically identified at the beginning. And then we complain as employers, right, why we're not meeting those savings, because we cherry-picked and then we started to modify and then we started to put barriers with some of these implementations, marketing material, communications, because we don't want that member noise or that member disruption. So we're counterintuitive to some of these suggestions.
[16:00] Justin Venneri: Interesting. So you're looking for a partner that understands and pays attention to the past and the plan experience and can offer helpful solutions that make sense to you essentially.
[16:10] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yes, essentially. And you know, and I think more and more employers are leveraging them from a vendor management perspective. They're going to ask more of them, really have their knees deep in some of these relationships and some of these implementations. So I think the consultant role is essentially going to be changing because HR departments are getting leaner. Right. They're leveraging more AI, but they're also going to leverage those partners that they bring in, if they're consultants or brokers, to do more.
[16:36] Justin Venneri: We've actually heard that recently that the role is changing and it's getting a lot more complicated.
[16:40] Susana Villegas Spillman: I think some more and more of them are going to sit within that benefit space in the employer area and really be that additional arm to them.
[16:48] Justin Venneri: And I have to ask the RFP process that the benefits broker consultant usually helps with. What reasons did or didn't you go out to bid for certain components of your plan year in and year out? And then I have a follow up for you.
[17:00] Susana Villegas Spillman: This is a great question and I often asked it because coming into the role I was able to see like how long we had partnerships with some of these vendors and why we had the partnership with some of these vendors. And the partnerships were like 20-plus years. We had the same vendors. And when asked why don't we go out to RFP? It's like, "why fix something that isn't broken?" I think that's what I hear. And then also it's very time consuming. There's so much that goes into an RFP. Getting there, selling the story, why should we do it? Getting the C-suite to agree to it. Because essentially you're leading to, it's going to be disruption if you choose a new vendor and do you have the internal resources to make those changes? So it's time consuming, you don't have enough resources, why change something that isn't broken? Continue with the status quo. Would I suggest doing it more frequently? Yes, because the market has changed. Even from the time that we implemented some of these point solution partners, they were very much independent of each other.
The Teladocs of the world didn't offer the offering they do today. The Progenys of the world didn't have all of those additional components within their system. You know, the Quantums of the world didn't have all these additional offerings within their packages. The Hinges of the world have evolved, right? So there's been such a huge evolution of resources and there's also been collapse and consolidation. So the space has continuously changed. And as employers we have to continue to change as well and really do a good assessment of the partners that we have within our space. Are they the right partner? Are they truly making changes? Are they sharing their data across other carriers? Are they competing against each other? I think it's a good time to take a step back, bring in some of these additional new vendors and do an assessment. Ultimately, if the partners you have in place today are truly working, you're going to be able to see that through the RFP. But it gives you additional leverage to be able to take a look at your cost component. Is it a PMPM? Is it a PEPM? Is it a case rate? Are you only truly paying for those members that are engaged within those resources? So it allows you to have a different insight as to what's available now versus then when you implemented these solutions.
[19:19] Justin Venneri: And what piece of advice would you give someone today to help improve the next RFP they run based on everything you just said?
[19:27] Susana Villegas Spillman: Oh, let's see, the RFP process. What I found is there's these standard questions that are asked. And so as vendors come in and they answer these questions could be these 15 top questions. I think that as vendors are coming in and answering these, they have to make sure that there's some flexibility to that employer. I mean, there's some customization that could be available. But if that employer hasn't asked the questions, maybe that you've seen from an industry perspective or from other RFPs, why not offer it? Why not offer those things as additional components or solutions? I've seen these RFPs where it's like, okay, we asked the question, it was answered. Then you go to implement. It was like, "Well, we told you we would do this. We just didn't tell you we had the tools to do it. We were assuming you're going to have that tool or that component." So I think that's my suggestion for some of these vendors is just to really be open and honest about what the capabilities are. Don't just state something universal to get the business, because as you gain that business, there's going to be disruption from the employer. You're going to start off on the bad foot if, in fact, you're not able to deliver something that you committed to or pretty generally committed to in the RFP response.
[20:40] Justin Venneri: That's a good reminder. And it sounds like you kind of answered the question two ways, which is cool. We hear a lot that the old way of running an RFP, and this is not just like Judy Health speak, it's like those questionnaires and the questions should be updated. And so if you're asking better questions from your seat and the vendor's providing better answers from their seat, then you can actually run a better process.
[21:00] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yeah, but one additional thing I'll add there though too, Justin, right, is during an RFP, your consultants, your partnerships, they're going to bring in who they believe is the best. Oftentimes I've seen that maybe, you know, somebody that you've seen out there in the industry that you're hearing noise on LinkedIn or if it's at one of your HR conferences, isn't being introduced. Ask why. Leverage the relationships that you have, if you sit on any employee advisory groups with some of these partners, leverage those extended relationships that you've built. Ask them questions. Maybe they've heard about it, or maybe they've considered implementing one of these vendors that isn't in the RFP. Because I have found that. We take a look at the RFP, we see a list of vendors, but there's one that may have some unique new offering that isn't included. Why aren't they included? So trust your consultants, but also trust yourself and leverage the relationships and your other employer partners to ask some of those questions about some of these other vendors.
[21:58] Justin Venneri: That's a great suggestion. Okay. And it segues nicely to my next question, which is say you have this great new vendor that you've found and you love the opportunity for them to help you and your plan members. If you want to pick a specific example, go for it. If you have just generally, I'm curious how you measure success of a new vendor partnership that they're meeting your needs and meeting your population's needs.
[22:20] Susana Villegas Spillman: I think the number one thing I would stay away from is ROI. I don't measure and I haven't measured success based on an ROI. Because ROI is so hard to prove, especially in the world that we live in right now. We've got siloed data. Every vendor is going to tell you they're driving ROI, and you come to another vendor and they're telling you they're driving ROI. Who really is driving some of this ROI if you don't have one centralized system that's capturing all your data? So for me, how I've measured success is by member stories, member engagement, yes. But then some of these stories that come to you or testimonials by these employees and then their referrals, their word of mouth referrals, I think that's one area of measuring success. Another one I think that does come to mind is we implemented a solution beginning of the year.
We rolled it out. Communication started after the holidays, probably mid-January. We had a stated number of members that we were saying, we had stated that this is how we would measure success. I think it was 2,500 members would have enrolled in the program over the course of a year. Within two weeks of us rolling out the program, we had met that number. It was just one of those programs that hit, right? It was a musculoskeletal... yeah, I mean, we had just started communicating, you know, we had already hit our budget expectations before the middle of the following month. It was a huge success. Why? Because as members started enrolling in it, the way that program was communicated at home, a lot of folks were struggling with MSK. And I don't know if it's a result of coming off the holidays. You've been home, eaten a lot over the holidays, you're just feeling sluggish. It's the beginning of the year. You want to do something for yourself. That may have driven it. But then we ended up hearing testimonials of employees that had participated in the program, and they're telling their colleagues about the program that they're enrolled, and so they're getting folks enrolled in those programs.
So I think that when that happens, naturally, that's success. Member engagement is difficult in all of these point solution partners because they target a very small percentage of your population. And so you've got a very small population that's going to benefit from these programs. And then you've got another very small population out of that small percentage that's really, truly going to engage. And how many of them are going to engage for the full duration of the program? I think we all struggle with our focus and our commitment.
[24:45] Justin Venneri: That's tough.
[24:46] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yeah, so that plays a huge part.
[24:47] Justin Venneri: A lot of that's qualitative measurement of success, which is interesting. How much time you spent reviewing that type of outcome data. For lack of a better way of saying it, is there anything you've learned about evaluating vendors that you wish you knew earlier in your career?
[25:00] Susana Villegas Spillman: I think the most important thing, I think, you know, we talk about data, we talked about quality. As you evaluate partners, it has to be a cultural fit. You've got a lot of really good vendors that are going to do a lot of really good things, but they might not be a culture fit right now. What's the tolerance of your internal employer? Tolerance for disruption or member noise. Sometimes these vendor partners come in with these great marketing solutions even to drive engagement, and it's going to be a huge communication strategy. But your tolerance for noise or disruption or maybe some outbound calls as an employer isn't there. You just don't have it. Anytime an employee gets an outreach by a vendor, they don't know who it is. Those are going to be escalated to your leadership. "I'm getting a call from A, B and C." So I think that making sure that there is a true culture fit with what their belief says or what their model is is really important because otherwise you're going to set yourself up for failure and you're going to set the vendor up for failure. They can deliver if you allow them the opportunity to deliver, but if you start putting guardrails in and limitations, they're not going to deliver.
So I think that's probably the number one thing as you evaluate vendors is that make sure that it meets your culture. And then also can they alter their program as you alter your needs? Is there an opportunity for customization? Because we all think we don't need it and then we get into implementation or something happens from a strategy perspective or mitigation needs and we need to course-correct or change courses. You know, if you don't have that option, you're just going to set yourself up for failure.
[26:36] Justin Venneri: So culture, fit and flexibility are two things you'd tell your younger self. I like it. And I just have a couple more questions for you. Thank you so much for spending the time with us today. I've got to ask you about GLP-1s. I can't help it. I'm sorry. If you're having a coffee with a peer who is struggling with the decision of whether or not to cover them for weight loss, for a plan, just say for argument's sake, with 10,000 members, of which an average percentage were dealing with obesity, what are a couple of options you'd suggest they consider?
[27:02] Susana Villegas Spillman: First and foremost, I would say you really need to have a long-term plan. What is it you're trying to solve for now? And do you have the tolerance for the uptick in financials based on the turnover that employers are facing? You're going to have an uptick. You may not have that person within your population two to three years down the road. So are you ever going to see positive health outcomes for that population base? Maybe not. When I say you have to have a long-term strategy, it's like what's your on-ramp and then what's your off-ramp? And do you have a true program that is going to include behavior change? Because it can't just be coverage of a drug. There has to be a roadmap to get to coverage of the drug. There has to be components in place that you are making some behavior change or some levers to get to that next opportunity to get to that GLP-1 coverage.
Because once you cover it, if you make the decision not to cover it, you're going to have a lot of disruption, a lot of noise, and sometimes covering GLP-1s or maybe even covering something else within your ecosystem, it may be that decision point that maybe a new member or a new employee coming on decide, "Hey, you know what, you really don't care about my health? I'm going to pick another employer that is going to cover those things." So things that weren't important in the past are becoming more and more important to job seekers.
[28:24] Justin Venneri: And I imagine with the pipeline changing and an oral version coming out and all of these make the decisions harder and harder as we go. More indications it's going to be an interesting 2026.
[28:34] Susana Villegas Spillman: Yeah, but chronic condition, it's like, I think we've talked about it, chronic condition management, it's something that we as employers, it has to be addressed. It's like we want healthier folks, but we also don't take the time to really think through some of these chronic condition programs and then how, as employers, they're being covered.
[28:51] Justin Venneri: Okay, last question for today. And I ask everyone the most astonishing thing that you've seen relating to our discussion that's safe to share. Of course. I just ask you to keep your compliance hat on because I'm sure you've seen and heard some crazy things over the years. So tell us a good story to send us off.
[29:05] Susana Villegas Spillman: I'm going to just tell you one basic thing I think that's important for all of us is know your contracts, spend the time to read them and understand them and understand what are the contractual terms that are in place with some of these vendors. Read your SPDs, understand what's currently in them, what's not in them. Sometimes maybe we overlook some of the components and you see these fee structures that are embedded into these contracts, and then we're complaining about, you know, high costs, yet we really don't understand the fee structures that we have with some of these vendor partners. And we're paying for 90% of the fees for members that are never going to utilize some of these benefits.
So I think that's probably the craziest thing. And I know it sounds odd, but I don't know how many people I've talked to that are like, "Oh, I didn't know that was in my contract. I didn't know that I wasn't getting any medical rebates within my medical plan or I was only getting a percentage of it." It's like you're leaving a lot of dollars on the table or you're overspending for benefits that are truly not being used. And so I think that's my number one thing that I just like to remind folks. You need to know where your costs are going.
[30:13] Justin Venneri: Makes sense. All right. Susana, thank you so much for taking the time. It was great to catch up with you and great having you on the show. I hope to stay in touch.
[30:20] Susana Villegas Spillman: Thank you Justin. Appreciate your time.
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