Healthcare Cost Management & Solutions Strategy

Healthcare Cost Management

We’ll help you implement cost management strategies for your employee healthcare benefits program.

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Is Your Healthcare Cost Strategy Delivering Results?

Rising healthcare costs are a universal challenge. Strategic employers manage these pressures by evaluating spend, optimizing benefits and implementing targeted healthcare cost management strategies — all while supporting employee wellbeing and retaining talent.

Whether you’re fully insured or self-funded, we’ll partner with you to develop a customized, multi-year roadmap with actionable strategies to reduce and manage healthcare costs sustainably.

What Is Healthcare Cost Management?

Healthcare cost management is the practice of using strategic tools and benefit design to control spending — without compromising care quality. For HR and finance leaders, it’s critical to protecting your benefits, managing budgets and staying competitive.

Why it matters: Without effective employer healthcare cost strategies, rising premiums and claims can quickly outpace budgets and strain your workforce.

What’s Driving Rising Healthcare Costs?

Understanding what’s behind the numbers is key to controlling them. Top cost drivers include:

Specialty prescription drugs – High-cost therapies are eating up a growing share of spend.
Chronic conditions – Long-term care for diabetes, heart disease, and more creates ongoing costs.
Hospital readmissions & ER visits – Many are avoidable with better preventive care.
Administrative complexity – Too many vendors and billing layers create avoidable overhead.
Low employee engagement – When benefits go unused or misunderstood, savings are harder to achieve.

Proven Strategies to Contain Healthcare Costs

Forward-thinking employers are implementing these key healthcare cost management strategies:

Leverage Data & Predictive Analytics
Uncover cost drivers, identify inefficiencies and improve plan design.

Add Stop-Loss Insurance
Protect your business from high-cost claims with this essential risk management tool.

Consider Self-Insured or Level-Funded Plans
Gain flexibility, transparency, and more control — especially for stable workforces.

Join a Group Captive
Share risk and leverage group buying power for greater predictability.

Promote Price Transparency & Education
Empower employees to be better consumers and maximize benefit value.

Explore Direct Primary Care & Value-Based Care
Prioritize outcomes over volume to improve experiences and long-term savings.

Why it matters: Without effective employer healthcare cost strategies, rising premiums and claims can quickly outpace budgets and strain your workforce.

Understanding what’s behind the numbers is key to controlling them. Top cost drivers include:

Specialty prescription drugs – High-cost therapies are eating up a growing share of spend.
Chronic conditions – Long-term care for diabetes, heart disease, and more creates ongoing costs.
Hospital readmissions & ER visits – Many are avoidable with better preventive care.
Administrative complexity – Too many vendors and billing layers create avoidable overhead.
Low employee engagement – When benefits go unused or misunderstood, savings are harder to achieve.

Forward-thinking employers are implementing these key healthcare cost management strategies:

Leverage Data & Predictive Analytics
Uncover cost drivers, identify inefficiencies and improve plan design.

Add Stop-Loss Insurance
Protect your business from high-cost claims with this essential risk management tool.

Consider Self-Insured or Level-Funded Plans
Gain flexibility, transparency, and more control — especially for stable workforces.

Join a Group Captive
Share risk and leverage group buying power for greater predictability.

Promote Price Transparency & Education
Empower employees to be better consumers and maximize benefit value.

Explore Direct Primary Care & Value-Based Care
Prioritize outcomes over volume to improve experiences and long-term savings.

Take Control of Rising Costs

Let’s build a smarter benefits strategy—together. Whether you're exploring self-insured options, optimizing your current plan, or seeking new ways to reduce waste, we’ll help you turn insights into action.

Connect with a cost management advisor today to start building your strategy.

How Clinical Informatics Can Uncover Major Saving Opportunities in Healthcare Plans

Analyzing healthcare plan data reveals spending and care trends, requiring clinical informatics to understand their underlying causes and determine cost-effective care delivery for plan sponsors.

Unlocking the Benefits of Stop-Loss Health Insurance

Stop-loss health insurance is the critical component for employers opting for self-funded healthcare plans. Getting the right coverage at the right cost often means improving employee health.

Learn how employee benefit group captives work as a way to achieve the benefits of self-insurance without the volatility.

Read the Case Study

Strategies to Reduce Healthcare Costs for Your Company

Healthcare cost management solutions are not one size fits all. That's why HUB works with you to advise on a tailored plan that meets your business' specific needs. Below are case studies from HUB that show some of the ways HUB supports their clients with healthcare cost management programs.

Creating a Compliant & Compassionate Response to High Cost drug Claims

The ‘miracle’ cures brought about through gene therapy and specialty drugs are changing lives, but their high costs are also putting financial burden on corporate health plans.

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Case Study: Doing Self-Funding Right

Watch the video and read the case study to learn how the city of Arvada’s HR and finance teams, with strategic guidance from HUB International’s advisors, started thinking outside the box and succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations.

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How HUB Clients Scored Healthcare Savings with Reference Based Pricing

Reference-based pricing is a major disruptor to a 50-year system of provider payments and is a game-changing strategy for employers struggling to control rising healthcare costs.

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How HUB Helped a Large Medical Practice Slash Costs and Improve Employee Health

HUB's team helped establish a self-insurance captive for New York Cancer & Blood Specialists, leading to multi-million dollar savings in the first six months, addressing double-digit annual cost increases in their health plan and improving care quality.

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How a Spectrum of Health Plan Options Will Save You and Your Employees Money

Employers that offer a limited number of health plan options could be over- or under-insuring their employees. The better approach? Create multiple health plan options that meet the diverse needs of employees.

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Case Study: Finding an Rx for Escalating Pharmacy Costs

Learn how HUB took a critical look at the existing prescription program and ultimately used a pharmacy carve-out to save the city of Fort Collins over $1 million.

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FAQs: Managing Healthcare Costs

It’s not just you. Every employer is facing the same challenge: how to manage increases in health care costs while still offering the benefits that attract and retain the talent you need. We can help by working with you to create a tailored multi-year cost management strategy that delivers sustainable results.

How can employers reduce healthcare costs without cutting benefits?

Employers can lower healthcare costs by focusing on smarter plan design — not fewer benefits. Strategies like using predictive analytics to target high-cost trends, offering direct primary care, promoting price transparency tools and joining benefit group captives help control spending while maintaining quality care. It’s not about taking away — it's about creating more value from every healthcare dollar.

Is self-insurance right for my business?

Self-insurance can be a powerful tool for healthcare cost management, but it’s not one-size-fits-all. It offers more control over plan design, access to detailed claims data and potential cost savings — especially for employers with a stable workforce and predictable healthcare usage. If you're looking to take a more active role in managing healthcare costs, self-insurance might be a fit. A benefits advisor can help evaluate whether your organization is ready for this level of plan flexibility and risk-sharing.

What is stop-loss insurance and how does it work?

Stop-loss insurance protects self-insured employers from unexpectedly high claims. It sets a cap on how much you’re financially responsible for — if claims go beyond that limit, the insurer covers the excess. This helps employers gain the flexibility of self-insurance while reducing the risk of large, unpredictable costs. It’s a key strategy for controlling employee healthcare costs without sacrificing plan quality.

How does data analytics help with cost control?

Data analytics shines a light on what’s driving your healthcare spend — revealing high-cost claims, underused benefits and plan inefficiencies. With predictive insights, employers can proactively adjust strategies, target chronic conditions and design smarter plans. It’s one of the most effective tools for managing healthcare costs while improving outcomes for employees.