Consumer-Directed Health Care & Private Exchanges

On this week's program, hosts Andrew Dietz and Doug Field are live in the studio to discuss consumer-directed health care, COBRA, private exchanges and more with special guests from DataPath and Pacific Resources.

The first guest is Greg Licata, VP for new product development for DataPath. The consumer-directed health care market is currently experiencing tremendous growth – yet is arguably still years away from its peak. Now more than ever, it’s critical to employ state-of-the art systems that create the process efficiencies to address this growth without increasing staff. And the consolidation of the TPA market and increased use of outsourced processing have created integration challenges. In this intervew, Greg discusses what the overall effect on the TPA market has been and what the market doing to address these challenges. In addition, Greg and the hosts look at the effect of the Affordable Care Act on COBRA activity and enrollment.

The second guest is Paul Rogers, president and chief operating officer of Pacific Resources. In June of this year, Pacific Resources published the results of their second annual survey Private Healthcare Exchanges: The Large Employer Perspective. The survey, which was conducted from February through April 2015, showed that large employers seek cost savings and administrative ease, yet still lack confidence that private exchanges are the right long-term method for providing health care benefits. The Pacific Resources 2015 survey showed some consistency with prior year results but also demonstrated evolving thoughts around private exchanges.