How to Get More from Your Advisor and Apply the P.L.A.N. Playbook
What role should your broker really be playing in your health plan?
In this episode of The Healthcare Heist Podcast, Lou Bernardi tackles one of the most important, and often misunderstood, relationships in employee benefits: your broker.
This isn’t about replacing your advisor.
It’s about elevating the relationship.
Lou explains how the traditional broker model was built around renewals, carrier negotiations, and service, but not necessarily around transparency, cost control, or long-term strategy. In today’s environment, that’s no longer enough.
You’ll learn why many brokers operate within a system of misaligned incentives, and how even well-intentioned advisors can unintentionally support rising costs if those incentives aren’t addressed.
More importantly, this episode gives you a clear path forward.
You’ll discover how to ask better questions, create accountability, and turn your broker into a true strategic partner, one who helps you reduce waste, align incentives, and build a plan that actually works for your business and your people.
Lou also brings everything together with a powerful summary of the P.L.A.N. System, showing how Prioritizing Health, Leveraging Transparency, Aligning Incentives, and Navigating the System work together to break the cycle of rising costs and deliver real results.
Because the goal isn’t to disrupt relationships.
It’s to strengthen them, so your health plan becomes a source of clarity, control, and competitive advantage.
What You’ll Take Away…
- How the traditional broker model was designed, and where it falls short today.
- Why broker incentives don’t always align with lowering your costs.
- The key questions every employer should ask their advisor.
- How to elevate your broker into a strategic partner.
- A clear summary of the P.L.A.N. System and how it works together.
- How better alignment leads to better outcomes for your business and your people.
Perfect For..
CEOs, CFOs, HR leaders, and advisors who:
- Want to get more value from their current broker relationship.
- Are unsure whether their advisor is truly aligned with their goals.
- Are ready to move from reactive renewals to proactive strategy.
- Want a clear framework for improving their health plan.
The right broker doesn’t just manage your benefits…
They help you take control of them.
—
Listen to the podcast here
Turning Your Broker Into An Ally And The P.L.A.N. Playbook To Win
Apply The P.L.A.N. Playbook And Get More From Your Advisor
The Broker’s Role: Ally Or Blind Spot?
Welcome to the show, where we pull back the curtain on one of the biggest, most misunderstood expenses in your business. I am your host, Louis Bernardi, founder of BritePath and a benefit optimization officer, certified healthcare fiduciary coach and health value advisor. If you’ve been following this series, you now understand how the system works, how to break it and how to rebuild it. In this episode, we’re going to talk about something that sits right in the middle of all of that, your broker and how to make sure they’re truly working for you.
Let me say this up front. This is not about replacing your broker. This is about getting the most out of the one you have or making sure you’re asking the right questions if something feels off so that you can replace your broker if necessary. There are some great brokers out there. I know many of them. I belong to associations with brokers, consultants, and advisors throughout the entire country who are doing amazing work for their clients aligned work and getting rewarded for that work they’re doing. Both financially but also personally.
There are other brokers who are still operating inside a system that wasn’t built for you who may or may not understand the machine and how the healthcare heist unravels. For years, the role of the broker was simple. Shop the market, negotiate renewals, and support HR. That was the formula. That was the winning formula. I was a general agent for many years. Essentially, I was the broker’s broker. Other brokers who specialized in other things like property casualty, insurance, financial planning, investing, life insurance, and disability. It came to me in my agency and we helped them place their benefits.
Most brokers don't get paid to lower your costs. They often get paid as a percentage of premium, especially in fully insured plans. When your costs go up, so does their compensation. Share on XThat was fine because we were shopping premiums. Everybody was focused on the insurance cost. We renewed plans. We closed the book on that one, moved on to others and waited for the plan to renew. In between, your broker supported your HR team with ads, terms and changes. They were friendly. They answered phone calls. They answered emails and processed transactions for you. That’s what the system trained us all to do. They trained businesses to look for brokers who provided good service, but that’s not enough.
Here’s the problem. That model was built by the machine. It keeps employers focused on premiums instead of claims. Renewals instead of strategy. That simply isn’t enough. Here’s where we need to be honest. Most Brokers don’t get paid to lower your costs. They often get paid as a percentage of premium, especially in fully insured plans. When your costs go up, so does their compensation. Now to be fair, sometimes they do not control that. The commission’s are embedded into the plans. They’re set by the insurance companies. They’re filed with the states, especially in the small group market.
The small group market in most states is under 50. In New York and a few other States like California, it’s 100 or fewer. Whether you’re working with a broker or a general agent or my dog Duncan, you pay the same premium. It’s embedded there. That doesn’t make them bad people. It just means they’re operating systems with misaligned incentives. They get paid more. We get paid more when your prices go up. If you’re not asking for better, for savings, or for outside the box strategies and solutions. What incentive do they have to proactively give you those?
The best brokers aren't just service providers. They're strategic partners. Share on XThe best brokers aren’t just service providers. They’re strategic partners. They help you understand your data, remove waste, align incentives, and build a better plan. Essentially, they help you understand the healthcare heist. They bring your attention to the healthcare and the health insurance ecosystems, identify the problems. The misaligned incentives and present you with solutions that can lower your costs and improve the care your employees get. They don’t just manage your benefits. They help you manage risk, culture and capital.
Investigating Your Benefits Relationship
They understand that a health plan is more than just an insurance policy. It touches you, your business, and your people in ways most other things within your company can never do. This is where leadership comes in. You don’t need to blow up the relationship. You need to elevate it. You need to sniff out the bad actors. You need to make sure that they’re capable. Start with one simple question, how do you get paid? Again, that might make them uncomfortable. If it does, that’s a warning sign.
If they were truly aligned brokers, even if they’re getting paid a percentage of premium, which they may or may not be able to control. They should be giving you a compensation statement under the Consolidated Appropriations Act, the CAA. You as the plan sponsor, if you have partners who are earning a thousand dollars a year or more, on your plans collectively amongst all programs. They offer you. That is about $85 a month. You can be a very small business and your broker partners are earning a thousand dollars a year.
When the CEO and the CFO engage directly, the conversation becomes less emotional, more factual, and more accountable. That's when performance begins. Share on XThey’re supposed to be giving you a compensation statement showing all of their direct and indirect compensation so that you can comply with that law. After the first question, go deeper. Are you helping us remove waste from our health insurance plan? Are our incentives aligned with yours? Are we building a strategy or just repeating a renewal? These shouldn’t feel uncomfortable. They should feel normal. When the CEO and the CFO engage directly, when you show up at renewal time or anytime during the year. Everything changes because we know that you think differently than HR.
We know that if you’re involved, you’re asking questions for a reason. The conversation becomes less emotional, more factual and more accountable. That’s when performance begins. If your broker keeps bringing the same solutions, avoids transparency, focuses only on the premiums and shows up with just spreadsheets. It can’t clearly explain compensation. It doesn’t run through the full uncompromised renewal with you. It can go through a financial exhibit on your renewal. Now, you’ve identified something and that’s not alignment. That’s a signal.
You're not buying insurance. You’re financing the health care of your employees and their loved ones. Share on XAgain, this isn’t about reacting. It’s about investigating. At this point, you’ve seen the entire system. You’ve seen the machine, the incentives, the impact, and the solution. Let’s bring it all together. Once again, I’m not saying go out and fire your broker and hire a new one. I’m saying see if your broker is capable. Perhaps you’re holding them back because you haven’t given them the appropriate amount of time to have a more in-depth conversation. Meet with them quarterly or every six months. Ask them to send you reports on a quarterly basis.
The Blueprint For A Successful Health Plan
Let them know that you’re watching your team. Not just HR. Your CEO, your C-suite, and maybe even your board. We’re just trying to stay in touch and in tune with our health insurance plan so that when the renewal time comes we’re not caught off guard. They were making reasonable budgeting estimates for the next year. What’s possible? Let’s talk about the PLAN Playbook. Let’s go over and summarize the system, the blueprint for beating the healthcare heist. Remember, P is prioritizing health.
You’re not buying insurance. You’re financing the health care of your employees and their loved ones. Start with your people. Better care leads to better outcomes and lower cost. Is your health plan helping your employees stay well or are there barriers within your plan that are preventing them from getting coverage, taking all their medications, seeing doctors? L is for Leverage transparency. Data creates visibility. Visibility creates control.
We still live in a world even though transparency is the law of the land, where insurance carriers believe it’s their data. They will only share in some cases a limited amount of data. You might be up for the fight and it will be a fight to get all that data. Know that it exists and know that you should be getting at least some level of data. If you’re not, that’s a warning sign. If there’s ways you can get data, use them. Aligned incentives is when you win, everything changes.
Stop buying insurance and start building a health plan. Share on XIf you’re self-insured and you’re using a TPA in a pharmacy benefit manager in case management and specialty medication providers that are owned by your insurance network, your insurance carrier. That is going to be a problem. You need to make sure, especially if you’re self-insured or partially self-insured with stop loss. You control the plan document. The data belongs to you. Your vendors agree to be tested and audited to make sure that they’re performing to the standards that they promise you in the first place.
This is verified then trust. Not trusted. Finally, N is navigating the system. Help your employees. Guide them towards decision before claims happen. That’s how you stop waste at the source. You can’t be there to hold your employee’s hand when they go to the doctor and the doctor tells them, “You’re complaining of a headache. You may need an MRI of the head.” They might. That typically has to be pre-authorized and the doctors are going to have to submit medical notes to meet the clinical policy of the insurance carrier or the network, if you’re using one.
There’s an opportunity there because there’s a speed bump. That’s when your employees need the resources to make sure that they’re not simply being steered towards the radiology facility that is partnered with the same health system that owns your doctor. They can see clearly the cost for those tests and other participating facilities. Perhaps, direct contracts that you might have with companies that purchase open space in radiology practices or independent radiology practices that don’t have the leverage that the large hospital system does.
The Business ROI Of Better Healthcare Strategy
Therefore, you pay less for the same high quality tests. This isn’t a theory. It’s happening now. What does winning look like? I know that unless there’s something in it for you, the CEO, the CFO and the HR leader, this might not get done. It’s human behavior. We take the path of least resistance, but if there’s something in it for us, if there’s an incentive for us ourselves, not just the company and our people. You may have a better chance of following this Playbook.
What does it look like? Predictable renewals, reclaimed capital, stronger employee loyalty, better performance, and more recognition within your company. A legacy that you can fall back on and be proud of when you leave your company. A lot of people are motivated by their legacy. Will you finally be the leader within your company that takes this challenge head-on? Stop buying insurance and start building a health plan.
Your broker can be your greatest ally or your biggest blind spot. The difference is how you lead the relationship. Share on XHere’s something most leaders do. Don’t expect they don’t just get capital back. You get time back, less confusion, fewer issues and more clarity. Clarity that you need to make more informed decisions and that’s the real time dividend. I realized that time is one of your most precious commodities as a business leader. You’re not going to invest the time into this and unless you believe it’s possible. This episode isn’t about brokers. It’s about leadership. It’s about asking better questions, expecting better answers and building a system that works for you.
Your broker can be your greatest ally and your biggest blind spot. The difference is how you lead the relationship. For years, the machine relied on silence. Stop waiting for someone else to take action to come to the rescue. Now you know what to ask, what to look for and how to take control. One last thing. Keep in mind, your company is likely like most others looking for capital to invest in its future. You’ve looked under every other corner. You’ve cut salaries and benefits. You’ve done everything you can to improve your EBITDA.
Maybe you’re looking to increase the valuation and pre-sale of your company. This dividend can be very substantial. It can fund your future growth and your retirement. Thanks for reading. I hope you learned a thing or two. More importantly, I hope it helps you get the results you and your people deserve. Until next time. Don’t settle for a health plan that isn’t working as hard as it’s good for you and your team.
Important Links