CLEARly Beneficial Podcast

Benefits Decision Season is officially here! And if your broker is bringing you a renewal right now, the real question is: are you ready to make an informed decision, or are you about to press the easy button again? In this Hot Health Take, Vincent Catalano cuts straight to what HR leaders and CFOs need to do before they agree to anything this season. Three moves, in order. No fluff. First: assess...

Walking the streets of Cannes, France a week after the film festival, Vincent Catalano had a thought that stopped him cold: every watch in every luxury boutique window had a price. You knew exactly what you were getting into before you walked through the door. Healthcare in America? Not a chance. In this short solo episode recorded while on vacation, Vincent delivers a raw, unfiltered dispatch fro...

A New York Times headline stopped Vincent cold during a walk through Battery Park: the Trump administration is proposing to let insurers finance medical debt on behalf of patients who can't pay their bills. It sounds like a safety net. It's a new market. In this Hot Health Take, Vincent breaks down exactly who benefits when hospitals, insurance companies, and banks are all handed a piece...

We Already Have a Framework That Could Fix Healthcare Everyone complains about the healthcare system. Fewer people are willing to name what needs to change and how. This episode does both. Vincent Catalano sits down with Peter Hayes, recently retired president and CEO of the Healthcare Purchaser Alliance of Maine and former Director of Associate Health and Wellness at Hannaford Supermarkets, and L...

Your most experienced employees may be quietly struggling with symptoms that are treatable. And your benefits plan probably isn't covering it. Dr. Lisa Larkin, MD, FACP, MSCP, IF, a nationally recognized women's health internist, founder and CEO of Ms. Medicine, and Past President of The Menopause Society, joins Vincent Catalano to examine what untreated menopause actually costs employer...

The healthcare system is not designed to make things easy for you. Pricing is opaque, incentives are misaligned, and the default pathways are almost always the most expensive ones. Most people discover this the hard way, after the bill arrives. In this solo episode, Vincent Catalano reads and unpacks an article he wrote for TheAdvocates.org, developed in partnership with Diamond Michael Scott. The...

American healthcare is broken in a way everyone can see but almost no one has been able to fix. The system was built around treating disease episodes and it has created an epidemic of preventable chronic conditions, costs that are eating employers alive, and patients who get lost the moment a diagnosis lands. Dr. Ralph Snyderman has spent decades at the center of this problem and at the forefront...

Brokers are drowning in meeting requests. Vendors think they have the next great solution. And somewhere in the middle, the best ideas in employee benefits never get a fair shot because nobody has time to figure out who's actually worth listening to. Chris Fisher built Benefits Ally to fix that. As the creator of the 3x3x3 Challenge, an on-demand elevator pitch format where vendors get 3 ques...

The Trump administration is considering auto-enrolling Medicare-eligible Americans into Medicare Advantage plans. But is defaulting into Medicare Advantage actually in your best interest? In this solo episode, Vincent Catalano draws on 23 years in the healthcare and health insurance industry, and his own recent Medicare enrollment experience, to break down what is really at stake with this proposa...

HR professionals are being asked to do more with less — manage benefits they don't fully understand financially, align with a finance team that speaks a different language, and make high-stakes decisions for their organizations without the strategic support they need. Ali Payne has spent nearly two decades helping organizations close that gap. As Senior Partner of People Solutions at The Peop...

How PBMs, Rebates, and Drug Pricing Are Draining Your Benefits Budget Pharmacy costs have ballooned from 12% of the healthcare dollar in 2000 to 30–50% today—and most employers have no idea why or what to do about it. Joey Dizenhouse, CEO of SlateRx and a 25-year actuary and benefits veteran, pulls back the curtain on the systems, incentives, and hidden money flows that make pharmacy one of the mo...

In July 2021, Vincent Catalano sat down as a guest on the Healthy Dose of Dialogue Podcast with host Don Antonucci, Senior Vice President of Growth at Blue Shield of California. Vincent was then Senior Vice President of Employee Benefits at Lockton Insurance Brokers, one of the largest privately owned consulting firms in the world. The conversation? Strikingly familiar. Vincent laid out the same t...

The headlines will tell you that stopping a GLP-1 means gaining the weight back. And they're right. A study of 77,000 patients confirms it: stop the drug, and the weight returns within a year to a year and a half. But Vincent Catalano isn't sure that's the problem everyone is making it out to be. In this solo episode, Vincent connects his own 23-year experience taking atorvastatin t...

The healthcare system was not built for women. Dr. Lisa Larkin has spent over 35 years proving it and building something better. In this episode, Vincent Catalano sits down with Dr. Lisa Larkin, MD, FACP, MSCP, IF, a nationally recognized women's health internist and Past President of The Menopause Society, to examine why traditional insurance-based medicine consistently fails midlife women a...

What do interior designers, CEOs, and conference-goers have in common? Strong opinions about healthcare. Vincent Catalano was in Orlando two weeks ago at KBIS, the National Kitchen and Bath Industry Show, alongside his wife, Kerrie Kelly, Chair of the Board of Directors for NKBA and CEO and Creative Director of Kerrie Kelly Studio. While there, he did what any good healthcare consultant would do:...

Recovering Millions in Mismanaged Employee Benefits When employers sign healthcare contracts, they assume they're getting what they pay for. Mark Flores, Vice President and Co-Founder of AVYM Corporation, reveals a disturbing reality: most employers are losing 15-30% of their healthcare spend to undisclosed fees and systematic billing errors—and they don't even know it. In this eye-openi...

A CEO's Case for Foundational Excellence in Healthcare Vincent Catalano sits down with Dr. Khuram Arif, CEO of Western Health Advantage (WHA), for an in-depth conversation about the future of regional healthcare delivery. With nearly 20 years as a practicing pediatrician, a decade in physician leadership at organizations like Woodland Clinic and Mercy Medical Group, and experience as WHA’s Pr...

Skip the RFP Theater: What HR & Brokers Really Need to Know About Switching Benefits Partners In this candid episode, Vincent Catalano pulls back the curtain on one of the most misunderstood processes in employee benefits: the broker RFP. Drawing from decades of experience on both sides of the table, Vincent challenges HR professionals to get honest about what they actually want before launchi...

From ER Nurse to Healthcare Entrepreneur: Transforming Primary Care What happens when a bedside ER nurse discovers the healthcare system is designed to keep people sick rather than make them well? In this revealing episode of The CLEARly Beneficial Podcast, host Vincent Catalano sits down with Nathan Baar, RN, Founder and CEO of HealthBar, to unpack one of healthcare’s most troubling contradiction...

Not all benefits brokers are created equal. In this first episode of a two-part series, Vincent Catalano pulls back the curtain on the employee benefits brokerage industry, sharing insights from his 22 years in the business. Drawing from his experience working with small brokerages to large national firms, Vincent discusses what employers should look for when evaluating a benefits broker—from unde...

The president just dropped details on the "Great American Healthcare Plan" – and Vincent's breaking down why the math doesn't add up. While everyone wants lower drug costs and transparent pricing, there's a fundamental flaw in thinking a government check will fix our healthcare system. Here's the problem: That thousand-dollar government payment might cover primary car...

The Fight to Save Independent Physicians in California Matthew Robinson, CEO of the Physician Association of California, reveals why independent physicians have dropped from approximately 50% to 33% in just 12 years—and the critical advocacy work being done to preserve physician autonomy, reduce administrative burdens, and ensure healthcare access across California. Discussion Topics: The dramatic...

Why Healthcare's Dysfunction Is a Feature, Not a Bug—And Who Benefits From Keeping It That Way Lawrence Thompson has spent 35+ years in healthcare leadership roles at some of the industry's most prominent organizations. As CEO of Benefit Systems Inc., and with previous executive positions at Aetna Life & Casualty, HealthAxis, and HealthNow where he managed over $1 billion P&L, La...

Saving for your health is actually a tax advantage! An HSA (or Health Savings Account) is a savings account that is used purely for medical services. Unlike other accounts, you get a deduction on your taxes when you put money into the HSA and you don’t get taxed when you take money out of the HSA. It’s also not a use it or lose it system, it keeps “rolling over” forever. However, because of its ta...

Listen to Vincent's Hot Health Takes as he demystifies your health plan deductibles in about three minutes! Depending on how your insurance plan is structured, your deductible could play an important role alongside your out of pocket maximum. Your deductible is the amount of money you would pay for your (covered) health care before your insurance starts to pay ("you pay first"). Usu...