In the first half of 2021, 36% of U.S. employees were engaged in their work, according to a Gallup study, leaving 64% not engaged and 15% actively disengaged. Engagement levels affect productivity, profitability, retention, absenteeism, customer satisfaction, and more. According to Chris Labrecque, president of Insurance Office of America’s Employee Benefits Services Division, employee engagement also affects commercial risk.

Prairie Health’s MindVitals product allows physicians, insurers, employers, and other organizations to conduct technology-enabled behavioral health screenings and connect individuals to the appropriate resources. The company’s Prairie Ecosystem is a network of wellness, therapy and psychiatric resources that can access technology and data to help individuals find the right treatment. “Our goal at Prairie is to apply data to improve outcomes through improved access and efficacy of care,” Chiang, the company’s CEO, said.

A health plan that incentivizes employees to use health care services wisely can lower costs for employers and workers alike. Everybody agrees with that basic idea, but a Minneapolis-based insurance company is showing how it actually works. Gravie, founded by serial health care entrepreneurs Abir Sen and Marek Ciolko, offers a health plan called Comfort that covers most common health care services at 100%.

Big Tree offers direct primary care and wholesale-priced pharmaceuticals for a low monthly payment to more than 5,000 patients nationwide. The innovative health care solution, which was founded in late 2017, gives members the majority of their health care coverage for a fraction of the cost of traditional plans.

Flume is empowering next-generation health care companies to design and launch powerful, personalized health plans in record time. Like Shopify did for e-commerce or Squarespace did for web development, Flume is working to create a health-plan-as-a-service platform that makes building health plans simple.

It is cliché to talk about a business owner forging a path in his or her field, but for Dutch Rojas, the trope is surprisingly apt. Rojas is at the helm of a constellation of businesses designed around a central idea: a renaissance in the fiscal workings of the health care marketplace. Sano Surgery, Sano Contracting, Everyone Health, and soon-to-be-realized direct-to-consumer platform Shop Healthcare all emerged from his desire to reshape the market from within, providing better cost-saving health care options for employers, consumers, and providers.

Dental coverage is expensive and complicated with long waiting periods, confusing deductibles and copays, minimal coverage for major procedures and low annual caps—and Americans are feeling the pain.

On an island in Florida that is home to fewer than 2,000 people, a locally owned hotel is offering its employees a radical health care plan—and saving millions of dollars.

Somewhere in the middle of Missouri, I got the phone call that I had been dreading. My clinical training wasn’t needed as my dad had passed away in the emergency room. My brain snapped back into being a son. I pulled the car off to the side of the road and took a few moments to cry. Then I got back on the highway and kept heading deeper into the Ozarks.

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