Episode #231: 25% of Waste Hiding in Your P&L with Donovan Pyle

Donovan Pyle pulls back the curtain on an industry most business leaders misunderstand: employer-sponsored health care. In this episode, Donovan explains how companies are overpaying by as much as 25%—often without realizing it—and why the current broker model keeps them trapped. Drawing on his own experience inside a major insurance company and later as a broker, Donovan saw firsthand how incentives are misaligned and how brokers are often rewarded for selling the most expensive plans—not the best ones.

That realization got him fired… and fired up. He launched Health Compass Consulting to give employers a path out. Donovan outlines how business leaders can cut costs without slashing benefits. In fact, the key to savings is often improving employee care, not reducing it.

This conversation is a must-listen for CFOs, HR leaders, and CEOs who want to transform their benefits from a financial liability into a strategic advantage.

Want to learn more about Donovan Pyle's work? Check out their website at https://www.donovanpyle.com.

Connect with Donovan Pyle on LinkedIn at https://linkedin.com/in/donovanpyle.

Key Points & Timestamps

00:00 – Craig's coma story and the loyalty of his team
00:51 – Introducing Donovan Pyle: CEO, author, and benefits disruptor
02:31 – 25% of employer health care spending is wasted
03:47 – Businesses with 50+ employees can unlock major savings
04:12 – The myth: cost savings = reduced benefits
05:13 – Treating chronic conditions early is cheaper and smarter
06:28 – Donovan’s origin story: from insurer to broker to whistleblower
08:58 – Fired for being too hard on a health insurer? It happened.
10:55 – “Monopolies fall.” Donovan explains why health care is next
12:42 – Insurance markups and hidden costs exposed
14:06 – Craig’s firsthand billing confusion highlights system flaws
16:27 – Most HR & finance leaders lack training in health care strategy
18:10 – The origin of Blue Cross: seeded by hospitals
20:10 – Health systems are buying PCPs to control referral pipelines
22:22 – One call saved Craig 50% on a scan. Here's how
23:15 – Why “networks” hide prices and destroy free-market dynamics
24:16 – Real leadership means demanding transparency in pricing
25:02 – Donovan’s 6-step framework to transform employer health care
26:11 – Recapturing 25% from a top 3 expense = no-brainer ROI
26:48 – “Your benefits advisor could outperform your top salesperson”

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;30;20
Craig Andrews
I was in a coma for six weeks while the doctors told my wife I was going to die. When I woke up, she told me the most fantastic story. My team kept running the business without me. Freelancers reached out to my team and said, we will do whatever it takes. As long as Craig's in the hospital. I consider that the greatest accomplishment in my career.

00;00;30;23 - 00;00;51;10
Craig Andrews
My name is Craig Andrews and this is the Leaders and Legacies podcast where we talk to leaders creating an impact beyond themselves. At the end of today's interview, I'll tell you how you can be the next leader featured on this show.

00;00;51;10 - 00;01;06;29
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome Donovan Pyle. He is the CEO of Health Compass Consulting. He's also the author of Fixing Health Care How Executives Can Save Their People, Their business and the economy.

00;01;06;29 - 00;01;23;24
Craig Andrews
He's a senior advisor at the Validation Institute, where he was recently named 2025 Benefits Advisor of the year. Donovan has seen the misaligned incentives that are built in to the way companies purchase health care.

00;01;23;26 - 00;01;45;20
Craig Andrews
And if you are providing health care for your employees, you're probably seeing double digit year on year price increases. And it's built into the system. Donovan is one of those people that's trying to fix that. And so we're going to talk about that today. So you can still provide health coverage for your employees without going broke.

00;01;45;20 - 00;01;48;09
Craig Andrews
Donovan, welcome.

00;01;48;12 - 00;01;49;07
Donovan Pyle
Thanks, Greg. That's,

00;01;49;07 - 00;01;51;01
Donovan Pyle
great. Great introduction. And,

00;01;51;01 - 00;01;55;04
Donovan Pyle
I think quite apropos, given what's going on in the world these days. It's good to be here.

00;01;55;07 - 00;02;01;29
Craig Andrews
Well. Thank you. Well, and, you know, when we were talking in the green room, I told you a,

00;02;01;29 - 00;02;09;22
Craig Andrews
a story about a company based where where you live in Orlando. I call them a criminal organization because they,

00;02;09;22 - 00;02;18;18
Craig Andrews
they accepted a plea deal from the DOJ, where they paid $10 million in 2018 and admitted to knowingly billing people for equipment.

00;02;18;18 - 00;02;31;11
Craig Andrews
They never did. They never delivered, and they did it knowingly. They admitted that. And it's just it's those type of things. They're just out of control 100%.

00;02;31;11 - 00;03;02;06
Donovan Pyle
I think, you know, one thing that gets lost in these conversations is that employers who cover 164 million Americans with health care benefits, that 25% of what they waste or what they spend is actually wasted. And that's that's three over $300 billion a year in wasted profits. And so the opportunity for businesses who pay attention to these things and gain first mover advantage is immense.

00;03;02;09 - 00;03;08;29
Craig Andrews
So let's do some math on this. Okay. So I've heard I've heard a couple different stats. I've heard that,

00;03;08;29 - 00;03;17;04
Craig Andrews
health benefits are like the number two line item in most businesses budget that I've heard. Number three. What is that align with what you're hearing?

00;03;17;06 - 00;03;18;25
Donovan Pyle
Yeah. Typically. And

00;03;18;25 - 00;03;26;11
Donovan Pyle
the number two or number three spot and and often the fastest growing financial risk on corporate panels.

00;03;26;13 - 00;03;47;03
Craig Andrews
So what you're saying is like you could go into any business, pretty much any business, a business that hasn't run into somebody like you or one of the other folks that we've had on the podcast, and you could immediately deliver a 25% price reduction when they're number two or number three. Line item.

00;03;47;05 - 00;03;55;18
Donovan Pyle
Yeah. I mean, there are lots of opportunities, especially if, you know, for businesses that have over 50 employees, that that's really where a lot more opportunities open up.

00;03;55;18 - 00;04;03;08
Donovan Pyle
But yes, there are tremendous opportunities across the board for those that are willing to pay attention and engage.

00;04;03;10 - 00;04;12;02
Craig Andrews
Now, when you find that does does does that impact quality of service is that, you know, hey, we're going to we're going to cut this out and it's going to cut the services.

00;04;12;04 - 00;04;29;08
Donovan Pyle
It's a great question, Craig, because you know, the brokerage, the benefits brokerage industry has kind of conditioned employers to think that the only way that you can reduce costs is by watering down coverage, basically passing more costs in a way of out of

00;04;29;08 - 00;04;41;28
Donovan Pyle
pocket expenses to employees. But if you study, you know, this, the history on this and the people that were really pioneers and health plan innovation and financing and procurement of health care,

00;04;41;28 - 00;04;50;17
Donovan Pyle
what the secret sauce is actually improving you you save money by improving care and coverage for employees.

00;04;50;17 - 00;04;56;02
Donovan Pyle
That's how you actually do that effectively, not by passing costs on to employees.

00;04;56;05 - 00;05;02;05
Craig Andrews
Well, when we're praying for our guests as Alison, the and she talks about how,

00;05;02;05 - 00;05;03;22
Craig Andrews
people, the,

00;05;03;22 - 00;05;05;04
Craig Andrews
they have, like, untreated,

00;05;05;04 - 00;05;13;11
Craig Andrews
conditions that lead to diabetes, that lead to amputations, all of that's more expensive than treating it before it gets there.

00;05;13;14 - 00;05;18;03
Donovan Pyle
100%. So, yeah. So, for example, I mean, diabetes is obviously,

00;05;18;03 - 00;05;37;13
Donovan Pyle
a very common condition. And, you know, to treat diabetes and manage it well costs about $8,000 a year. But to wait, which which okay, it's a lot of money, but but the cost of not treating it and not managing that disease well is well north of $50,000 a year.

00;05;37;13 - 00;05;58;10
Donovan Pyle
Because as you I'm sure you've seen this with friends and family. You know, some people that don't have diabetes and are not they're not, you know, managing it correctly because they're afraid, they're avoiding care because of costs, etc. they're going to end up they end up in the emergency room and they end up hospitalized for a week. The and that costs over $50,000.

00;05;58;12 - 00;06;09;01
Donovan Pyle
Then, then and then you've got all this off costs as well. They're out of work for a week. They haven't been able to take care of their family. They're, you know, where they work. The customers are impacted

00;06;09;01 - 00;06;23;02
Donovan Pyle
on and on and on. So to your point, you know, yes, exactly. The best way to reduce health care costs is to keep people healthy, get them to treatment and care that they actually need to to be healthy.

00;06;23;05 - 00;06;24;17
Craig Andrews
Well let's let's back up a little bit.

00;06;24;17 - 00;06;25;25
Craig Andrews
How how did you

00;06;25;25 - 00;06;28;15
Craig Andrews
how did you get into this business.

00;06;28;18 - 00;06;30;02
Donovan Pyle
Yeah. So, so,

00;06;30;02 - 00;06;32;10
Donovan Pyle
you know, I, I worked for a

00;06;32;10 - 00;06;54;11
Donovan Pyle
multinational insurer and benefits brokers were my customer. So we would have our suite of products and we would sell our, our, our products through benefits brokers who would sell them to employers. Right. That was our biggest distribution channel. And while I was there, you know, as I worked my way up through the organization,

00;06;54;11 - 00;07;03;05
Donovan Pyle
I got to a point where I was actually designing these, these, these bonus programs for brokers who sold the most products.

00;07;03;08 - 00;07;26;04
Donovan Pyle
And so, you know, we would literally take, take these, you know, executives from these brokerage firms on all inclusive trips around the world to really reward, well, one, thank them for selling our products. But really it was part of, you know, to to get them to sell more of our products. Right. We weren't doing this out of the out of the goodness of our hearts.

00;07;26;04 - 00;07;35;23
Donovan Pyle
This was just the way the game was played. But what I noticed was that, you know, a lot of brokers seem pretty apathetic about bringing the best solutions,

00;07;35;23 - 00;07;41;12
Donovan Pyle
especially when it came to to health plans and, you know, I become,

00;07;41;12 - 00;07;49;23
Donovan Pyle
very much aware and inspired by the work that a gentleman by the name of Harris Rosen had done in Orlando, where he had saved his his hotel,

00;07;49;23 - 00;07;51;29
Donovan Pyle
over a half $1 billion,

00;07;51;29 - 00;07;58;20
Donovan Pyle
on health care over the last 30 years by improving coverage, providing a superior product for his employees.

00;07;58;22 - 00;08;13;00
Donovan Pyle
And I thought, you know, very naively, if I just move to the brokerage side of the industry, I can probably scale a bunch of those solutions. I can probably help a lot of people. I can probably make some money doing that. I was completely wrong.

00;08;13;02 - 00;08;14;17
Craig Andrews
What happened?

00;08;14;19 - 00;08;19;25
Donovan Pyle
So? So I moved to the brokerage side of the industry. Worked for a national brokerage firm.

00;08;19;25 - 00;08;32;04
Donovan Pyle
From day one, there was resistance. I was coming in, you know, asking about. Well, what do you. You know, what do you like to do for this kind of, you know, innovate, innovative approach, yada, yada, yada. Nobody there really knew what I was talking about.

00;08;32;28 - 00;08;58;12
Donovan Pyle
And it became very clear after building a book of business and helping some, some of our clients that they're not in the business of, you know, helping to optimize the supply chains, this health care supply chain. That's not what they do. They sell canned insurance products, and that's what they do. And helping employers maximize the return on their investment is not really part of that equation.

00;08;58;14 - 00;09;02;10
Donovan Pyle
If it's not insurance, then they don't know really what to do with it.

00;09;02;10 - 00;09;04;10
Donovan Pyle
So I was actually I got terminated,

00;09;04;10 - 00;09;18;13
Donovan Pyle
out of the blue for advocating, you know, for our customers and being too hard on one health insurer who happened to pay them their largest bonus each year. And so that was a real shock to the system.

00;09;18;15 - 00;09;34;21
Donovan Pyle
And I said, you know what? This this revenue model does not serve the end user. We have to create a different revenue model so that we can align ourselves with employers to help them meet their objectives.

00;09;34;24 - 00;09;44;02
Craig Andrews
You know, Dave Ramsey says, go into any city and look at the tallest, tallest buildings. And the tallest buildings are going to be banks and insurance companies.

00;09;44;04 - 00;09;50;03
Donovan Pyle
Yep. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a story about the, the the CEO of,

00;09;50;03 - 00;10;10;02
Donovan Pyle
of Sony in Japan coming to the United States and seeing these huge buildings that were owned by insurance companies. And so he in Japan, they started a life insurance division, and that's their most profitable division. We know them just for electronics over here. But in Japan, their bread and butter is life insurance.

00;10;10;04 - 00;10;17;10
Craig Andrews
Wow. So he got fired. That sucks. But fired for looking out for your customer. I mean, yeah, that's

00;10;17;10 - 00;10;31;14
Craig Andrews
exactly. That's when you know you're in the wrong job. When you. Well, obviously it's it's fixed. You know, you now have a new job to look for, but when you get fired for looking after your customers, that is perverse.

00;10;31;16 - 00;10;55;20
Donovan Pyle
Yeah. There was there was just some pieces that I really didn't understand about, fully understand about the industry at that time. And that was, you know, the moment when I really became radicalized to say, listen, we have as an industry, we have to evolve and change our revenue model so that we can solve the problems that employers need us to solve.

00;10;55;22 - 00;10;58;29
Craig Andrews
Well, one of my sayings that cleave to is,

00;10;58;29 - 00;11;27;15
Craig Andrews
customer demands will absolutely be met, hopefully by you. And so, yes, for a period of time, these big insurance companies can get away with what they're doing. But give any system enough time. And you know what people thought were unstoppable? Start unstoppable. Monopolies fall. You know, in the late 90s, everybody thought that, you know, Microsoft would forever be the dominant monopoly.

00;11;27;15 - 00;11;48;05
Craig Andrews
There was no way around it. And, you know, Bill gates got mocked, you know, was testifying before Congress and he got mocked for saying, yes, we we do dominate the industry. That's because we work very, very hard. But make no mistake, in one generation we could lose our spot. And people mocked him. They're like, that's a ridiculous thing to say.

00;11;48;07 - 00;11;55;11
Craig Andrews
Ironically, when he made that statement, there was a little known start up in Mountain View called Google.

00;11;55;14 - 00;11;56;08
Donovan Pyle
Yeah.

00;11;56;10 - 00;12;15;12
Craig Andrews
And I think Google's getting ready to. I think Google's day in the sun is is winding down I believe and I believe that's been coming for a few years. So that's why I'm excited by people like you. Because the current system. Well, and it's in your book, you know,

00;12;15;12 - 00;12;17;20
Craig Andrews
how the and the title of your book help,

00;12;17;20 - 00;12;18;05
Craig Andrews
helping

00;12;18;05 - 00;12;20;16
Craig Andrews
how, you know, saving,

00;12;20;16 - 00;12;27;25
Craig Andrews
employees their business and the economy, how executives can save people, their business in the economy.

00;12;27;27 - 00;12;42;12
Craig Andrews
And so what I've heard is the new norm is double digit. That's why I'm experiencing as my my insurer, I buy insurance for me personally and my rates go up 20, 22% a year.

00;12;42;15 - 00;12;45;19
Donovan Pyle
Yeah, it's just not sustainable. And so,

00;12;45;19 - 00;12;46;00
Donovan Pyle
you know,

00;12;46;00 - 00;12;55;24
Donovan Pyle
at the macro level, I think what's what purchasers need to do is find a way to buy health care more directly.

00;12;55;24 - 00;13;11;15
Donovan Pyle
You know, there's there's studies out there. It's showing that your primary care physician probably only makes around $0.27 on the dollar. Right? For every care that you spend on every dollar that you spend on primary care, your physician actually only makes a fraction of that.

00;13;11;17 - 00;13;40;16
Donovan Pyle
It's all of all of the rest of the money is going towards administrative bloat. And, you know, and it's it's been more and more documented about how health insurers are actually marking up the unit prices of, of services right there. So your primary, your, your doctor, you know, might be charging $100 for the visit, but the insurance company is marketing up another 50 bucks and charging, you know, the employer that 150 for that visit.

00;13;40;16 - 00;13;56;11
Donovan Pyle
So there's just a lot of administrative bloat that you know, I think a yeah, at the macro level, consumers and employers want to find a way to circumvent those administrative layers and buy what you really want, which is health care.

00;13;56;14 - 00;14;06;27
Craig Andrews
You know, I had an experience like very, very recently that has me puzzled. And I think maybe you you may have just tripped over the answer to it's I,

00;14;06;27 - 00;14;10;24
Craig Andrews
eight weeks ago I got the flu and I never go to the doctor.

00;14;10;24 - 00;14;15;04
Craig Andrews
Because I'm generally healthy. I'm in my 50s and I'm not on a single medication.

00;14;15;06 - 00;14;16;14
Donovan Pyle
And I.

00;14;16;14 - 00;14;19;02
Donovan Pyle
You got maybe.

00;14;19;05 - 00;14;20;00
Craig Andrews
And,

00;14;20;00 - 00;14;30;04
Craig Andrews
I go to the doctor. I'm feeling miserable. I have to pay 120 bucks at the emergency clinic. Just so you know, I'm on a high deductible plan, so the first 5000 is out of pocket for me.

00;14;30;05 - 00;14;30;28
Donovan Pyle
Yep.

00;14;31;01 - 00;14;51;18
Craig Andrews
And I pay 120, and then they do a flu and a Covid test. And I have to pay like another 30 for that. And then literally like 3 or 4 days later I start getting the bill for another 30 bucks. I'm like, what? Where the heck did this come from? And I get my reconciliation from, you know, from Blue Cross.

00;14;51;20 - 00;15;06;06
Craig Andrews
And I see that all those are covered and left me wondering what it's been cheaper for me to just go in and say, what's what's the cash price for a visit? I'll pay it. You don't have to worry about insurance.

00;15;06;08 - 00;15;34;12
Donovan Pyle
Yeah, yeah. And this this is a great point. So, you know, the latest studies from from Rand show that people that pay cash out of pocket get a better deal, get better deals on their unit prices of care than fortune 50 companies, health insurers with millions of lives of leverage that they could use if only they had the incentive to do that.

00;15;34;14 - 00;15;38;02
Donovan Pyle
And so, you know, it speaks to the perverse incentives that are

00;15;38;02 - 00;15;39;01
Donovan Pyle
really,

00;15;39;01 - 00;15;47;09
Donovan Pyle
you know, just taken over the industry and, and led to these it just led to these double digit increases that you're talking about.

00;15;47;09 - 00;16;01;16
Donovan Pyle
So you got it. You got to understand those things as a, as a business, you know, if you're going to fight this and take it seriously so that you can improve the financial and physical health of your organization, you got to understand these dynamics and what you're up against.

00;16;01;16 - 00;16;27;05
Donovan Pyle
And and, you know, frankly, you know, as you know, CFOs, they have virtually no training and health care financing, procurement, HR people have virtually no training in healthcare finance and procurement. They rely on outside experts. Just like, you know, I own a small business. I don't want to know everything about the changing tax laws. Each year I hire a CPA to cover my blind spots and protect me.

00;16;27;07 - 00;16;40;25
Donovan Pyle
That's why I do that. But, you know, in the when we're talking about employer sponsored health plans and benefits, they rely on brokers. And that's a mistake. If you understand the incentive models of,

00;16;40;25 - 00;16;43;07
Donovan Pyle
of the brokerage industry.

00;16;43;10 - 00;16;54;06
Craig Andrews
Well, and help me unwind this visit, because this is the thing that's phenomenally weird. Originally they charged me 150 for that visit when I was there for the visit. And they seem real happy with that amount.

00;16;54;06 - 00;16;59;02
Craig Andrews
And then since they file insurance, insurance talks the price up another 30 bucks.

00;16;59;04 - 00;16;59;16
Donovan Pyle
Yeah.

00;16;59;18 - 00;17;02;02
Craig Andrews
So do that.

00;17;02;05 - 00;17;27;12
Donovan Pyle
You're your claim got got repriced. Okay. So you know they didn't have the cash price. What the negotiated rate unit prices from Blue Cross in front of them. And so they, they thought okay 100 bucks is probably around what it's going to be. And then they send send to claim off Blue Cross to get Repriced right through their discounted rating engine.

00;17;27;14 - 00;17;53;01
Donovan Pyle
And and so that's exactly what happened is that once it got repriced it, it said, oh actually you owe more. We don't want health insurers are not in the business of reducing health care costs. That's not what they do. They don't want that in the commercial space. They may want that in the Medicare space. And that creates a whole other a whole other host of issues.

00;17;53;03 - 00;18;10;21
Donovan Pyle
But in the commercial space, they are not trying to negotiate hard with hospitals. So this is one of the things we have a chapter on this in my book. And that's we talk about the history of the industry. So one thing that, you know, since you've got a lot of business minded people on your pod here,

00;18;10;21 - 00;18;16;16
Donovan Pyle
they'll probably find this interesting is that, you know, in 1929 when, when,

00;18;16;16 - 00;18;31;04
Donovan Pyle
Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, Texas, had this epiphany of partnering with an a large employer and having the employer pre pay for their hospital services.

00;18;31;04 - 00;18;37;11
Donovan Pyle
This was this was SAS before SAS right there. And so they, they partnered with with

00;18;37;11 - 00;18;54;09
Donovan Pyle
the Dallas Teachers Union and the Dallas Teachers Union agreed to pay $0.50 per employee for months so that the Dallas teachers could go the, the women that work there could go to this nice, clean hospital and deliver their babies. That was the pitch.

00;18;54;12 - 00;19;17;16
Donovan Pyle
And that model was so successful that within the next ten years, 14 other of these health plans, which got rebranded as Blue Cross, popped up around the country. Now, here's the kicker. It's the actual hospitals that put up the seed money to found what became these health insurers.

00;19;17;19 - 00;19;41;22
Donovan Pyle
So so health insurers are simply distribution for hospitals. Their partners. And it's you know, again, as an executive, if you don't know that then the world gets very confusing. But they are partners. And so they both benefit when costs go up not down.

00;19;41;24 - 00;19;45;14
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Yeah.

00;19;45;14 - 00;19;49;09
Craig Andrews
I'm biting my tongue because I saw that,

00;19;49;09 - 00;19;52;15
Craig Andrews
one, one area,

00;19;52;15 - 00;19;56;28
Craig Andrews
in my own journey where it, it,

00;19;56;28 - 00;20;10;04
Craig Andrews
it was very clear that my primary care physician was linked to the hospital where I spent three months. And they all had incentives that were not focused on my health.

00;20;10;06 - 00;20;17;18
Donovan Pyle
Correct. Correct. The these large health systems are not buying up independent

00;20;17;18 - 00;20;41;01
Donovan Pyle
primary care physician groups because they love primary care. That's not like why they're doing that. They're doing that to control the rest of the supply chain. Because primary care is basically a loss leader. Right. There's very little money in primary care. But if you can control the rest of the referral chain, then you can control where the margins really are.

00;20;41;01 - 00;20;59;03
Donovan Pyle
And that's in, you know, secondary and tertiary care in labs imaging. Yeah. And this is why we end up and you may have experienced this yourself. You probably ended up having an MRI done that cost $6,000. When, you know, you can get that same MRI for five, 600 bucks down the street.

00;20;59;05 - 00;20;59;17
Craig Andrews
I,

00;20;59;17 - 00;21;01;18
Craig Andrews
actually we were talking in the green room about,

00;21;01;18 - 00;21;06;00
Craig Andrews
Kristen Dickerson. Doctor dickerson. Yeah. And I had,

00;21;06;00 - 00;21;12;06
Craig Andrews
because I'm going to high deductible plan I have I'm on the grandfathered plan before ACA. And,

00;21;12;06 - 00;21;18;00
Craig Andrews
and so I have an incentive to go procure the best health care for the money. Yep. And,

00;21;18;00 - 00;21;19;15
Craig Andrews
and so I needed a,

00;21;19;15 - 00;21;21;29
Craig Andrews
I think it was a Cat scan, and,

00;21;21;29 - 00;21;26;24
Craig Andrews
and I was referred to the number one provider of of scanning, you know,

00;21;26;24 - 00;21;29;11
Craig Andrews
radiology here in Austin.

00;21;29;13 - 00;21;42;14
Craig Andrews
And it would take like 2 or 3 weeks to get in, and it was like 800 bucks. And I just kind of paused. I was like, I wonder if there's anybody else in town that does this. Yeah. I don't even know Kristen at the time,

00;21;42;14 - 00;21;44;08
Craig Andrews
I called this other place called,

00;21;44;08 - 00;21;45;13
Craig Andrews
Park,

00;21;45;13 - 00;21;46;07
Craig Andrews
was it it's,

00;21;46;07 - 00;21;51;17
Craig Andrews
it's right across from one of the major hospitals in Austin and,

00;21;51;17 - 00;21;54;15
Craig Andrews
park imaging, I think.

00;21;54;17 - 00;22;16;17
Craig Andrews
And they said, we can get you in tomorrow for half the price. And there weren't rusty scalpels laying around there, right? Know the place was clean. The people were nice. The people were nice. They were happy I was there. They made it a pleasant experience. Yeah, yeah. And I found out later that Kristen's the medical director at that at that facility.

00;22;17;21 - 00;22;22;16
Craig Andrews
And all it took was a phone call to cut my price in half.

00;22;22;19 - 00;22;35;06
Donovan Pyle
Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is this is the thing I think we've we've talked about these these these PPO networks. The concept of networks is like, it's a relatively new construct. Yeah. All of this is relatively new.

00;22;35;06 - 00;22;45;23
Donovan Pyle
Someone just made this up, right? This this idea of like we're going to have these pre negotiated networks and so yeah, we know what the prices are yada yada.

00;22;45;25 - 00;23;15;16
Donovan Pyle
The challenge is that these, these networks have obfuscated what the actual prices are. And if you don't know the prices you don't have a real free market. Right? I mean, it's impossible to have a free market, a functioning market, when you don't know the price of anything. That's a pretty strong signal to consumers. And so, you know, what we're all suffering under is an inverse marketplace where, you know, when you pay BMW prices, you often end up with a Yugo.

00;23;15;19 - 00;23;16;15
Donovan Pyle
And, you know.

00;23;16;17 - 00;23;20;24
Craig Andrews
I mean it. Well, there there are people that are listening who have no idea where you go is oh, okay.

00;23;20;25 - 00;23;33;13
Donovan Pyle
So so a you go is a basically was a tin can on wheels in the late 80s, early 90s. And I know this because my I did a cross-country trip, part of a cross-country trip with my uncle,

00;23;33;13 - 00;23;40;07
Donovan Pyle
who rented it? You go out with Elena out in the Rocky Mountains. Don't ever do that. But anyways, it it's a junk car.

00;23;40;08 - 00;23;42;02
Donovan Pyle
It's a total junk car.

00;23;42;02 - 00;24;16;26
Donovan Pyle
And so you know, this is the challenge is that without these market signals of having prices, you just. We have this. There's no correlation between cost and quality. It's just it's just the inverse marketplace. And so that that to me, as someone who helps manage health care supply chains for businesses, this is an incredible opportunity because if we can put them in a position where they can actually see pricing, then we can really help to manage their supply chain for value and and deliver more value to stakeholders.

00;24;16;28 - 00;24;26;04
Craig Andrews
All right. Once. So as we wrap up, how do you work with people? What do you do for businesses and what does that look like? How is that structured.

00;24;26;06 - 00;24;33;28
Donovan Pyle
Yeah. So so basically what I outline in the book is that there there's a six step process for healthcare transformation.

00;24;33;28 - 00;24;47;01
Donovan Pyle
At the employer level. And the first step is, is getting unbiased advice. So you can do that by hiring benefits expertise in-house or working with this new breed of management consulting firms that,

00;24;47;01 - 00;24;50;22
Donovan Pyle
that specialize in this area of health care financing and procurement.

00;24;50;29 - 00;25;02;20
Donovan Pyle
That's the first step. That's a non-negotiable and improves your, your, your compliance footing, etc., etc.. The second step is to really quantify your current state right? You know, quantifying,

00;25;02;20 - 00;25;17;13
Donovan Pyle
there are basically seven categories of value within a benefits program. So score yourself on those seven categories of value so you can identify opportunities, set goals, and then develop roadmaps to achieve them.

00;25;17;15 - 00;25;48;28
Donovan Pyle
But it's you know it's amazing. It doesn't matter I mean I was talking with the CFO of a 50,000 life group last week. They had they had no KPIs around. What is success? We're literally just throwing things against the wall and hoping that it sticks for these 50,000 employees and their dependents. And and so they really what employers really need, from my perspective, is a framework for how to get from point A to point B, and that's the clarity that we provide.

00;25;49;01 - 00;26;11;24
Craig Andrews
When kind of coming back to something that came up at the beginning, the thing that just really stuck with me. I'm a numbers guy, and when you said that you can go into almost any business and find 25% waste, and we know that health care is either the number two or number three line item in the budget. I mean, I can't imagine the business that wouldn't I mean, those are hard gains to make.

00;26;11;24 - 00;26;26;25
Craig Andrews
You'd have to go do more sales. Yeah. To get that kind of gain. And here's something with your existing sales, with your existing team, without hiring anybody, you can get a bump for your business. That's a no brainer to me.

00;26;26;27 - 00;26;48;13
Donovan Pyle
Yeah, I actually like to joke with, with, you know, with our customers and, and people, you know, executives that, you know, if, if you do this the right way, your bet, your benefits professional, whether you have that in-house expertise or you're hiring, a management consulting firm can add more to your company's bottom line than your top salespeople in some cases.

00;26;48;16 - 00;26;49;27
Craig Andrews
Wow. Right.

00;26;50;00 - 00;26;50;14
Donovan Pyle
That.

00;26;50;17 - 00;26;52;09
Craig Andrews
Yeah. No. Go ahead.

00;26;52;12 - 00;27;05;16
Donovan Pyle
Yeah. So imagine, you know, instead of having to go out and find that that new salesperson that just rocks it and does everything you dream of doing, you can unlock this trapped capital on your own that you already have

00;27;05;16 - 00;27;08;12
Donovan Pyle
and put that back on your bottom line.

00;27;08;14 - 00;27;11;25
Craig Andrews
That's awesome. Well done. Then how can people reach you?

00;27;11;27 - 00;27;12;10
Donovan Pyle
Sure.

00;27;12;10 - 00;27;14;04
Donovan Pyle
Well, they can reach me on on LinkedIn at

00;27;14;04 - 00;27;15;16
Donovan Pyle
Donovan Pyle.

00;27;15;16 - 00;27;19;27
Donovan Pyle
LinkedIn.com slash Donovan Pyle or Donovan pyle.com.

00;27;20;00 - 00;27;27;05
Craig Andrews
And your book is fixing health care how executives can save their people their business and the economy.

00;27;27;07 - 00;27;29;03
Donovan Pyle
Huge opportunity.

00;27;29;06 - 00;27;33;15
Craig Andrews
Donovan thanks. Thanks for sharing your story. Leaders and legacies.

00;27;33;17 - 00;27;36;28
Donovan Pyle
Great to see you Craig. Thank you.

00;27;36;28 - 00;28;03;24
Craig Andrews
This is Craig Andrews. I want to thank you for listening to the Leaders and Legacies podcast. We're looking for leaders to share how they're making the impact beyond themselves. If that's you, please go to Ally's for me.com/guest and sign up there. If you got something out of this interview, we would love you to share this

00;28;03;24 - 00;28;05;19
Craig Andrews
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00;28;05;21 - 00;28;29;01
Craig Andrews
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00;28;29;03 - 00;28;37;08
Craig Andrews
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00;28;37;08 - 00;30;39;11
Craig Andrews
It means a lot to my team. If you want to know more, please go to Ally's for me.com. Or follow me on LinkedIn. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.