Ignore brokers at your own risk. Antagonize them at your ruin. Build a health plan with Nick Soman

What we cover

Start with brokers, not against them. The typical "tech disruption" approach frames brokers as rent-seeking middlemen. 

Nick's counterargument: 

• Brokers fill a trust role that no website can replicate
• They touch roughly 70% of small-to-mid-size business health plan sales
• They will pick up the phone (how many millennials and Gen Zers can say that? Certainly not I)
• Brokers will also tell your product team what's missing. All of those "oH, MemBeRS woN’T bOOk USer IntErvIeWs wITh mE" Product Managers should probably be talking to brokers

If you don't have rate relief, you have nothing. Rate relief is the one question brokers are being asked by their clients, day in and day out. If you can't show that your plan is cheaper for at least 40% of groups, the conversation doesn't start. Nick's heuristic: if the broker doesn't have price, they have nothing to sell, no matter how elegant the technology.

Therefore: focus on steerage. The difference between the cheapest and most expensive MRI in Austin, TX is roughly 8x. If you can build a plan that guides people to the lower-cost option for non-emergency shoppable services, you've found the actual lever. Nick's starter heuristic: for all non-emergency hospital claims, do you have an alternative good spot to send members to next time? 

Then simplify until it hurts. Decent spent four years before it could credibly sell the Zero Plan: “if you do what the plan wants you to do, it costs you $0 outside your monthly contribution.” That is the level of simplicity you need to actually break through to the decision maker at your prospects. The HR person who has to make this decision once a year and really doesn't want to be in this conversation needs a message that lands in one sentence. This also helps brokers sell (remember rule number one).

Brought to you by

Stedi - Stedi is the modern healthcare clearinghouse. They’re the new way to verify insurance, submit claims, and track claim payments. http://stedi.com/demo

For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email sales@outofpocket.health

Find Nick

• nsoman@nice.healthcare
• nick@decent.com
• Nice Healthcare: https://www.nice.healthcare/
• Decent: decent.com

Exciting upcoming events in the OOP world

• We have a Hackathon in SF from Apr 17-19. We’re full on Hackers, but you should definitely come to Demo Day and see what people built. I built an app for people to lend Oura Sleep/Readiness Points to each other… at 10% Daily Compounding. I’m calling it “Oura Farming”. I guarantee you there will be 10x better ideas than that at Demo Day

Timestamps

00:00 Intro: Why Tech People Fail in Healthcare (With Nick Soman, Former CEO of Decent)

09:47 Tip #1 — If You Can't Sell to Brokers, You Have Nothing

19:17 Reframe Brokers as Channel Partners, Not Middlemen

29:06 Make It Simpler. Then Simpler Again. (The Story of the Zero Plan)

34:53 The Secret Weapon: Steerage (And Why an 8x Price Spread Changes Everything)

43:56 Narrow Networks, Broker Trust, and Building Something You'd Put Your Own Family On