Ralph Weber welcomes back Dr. David Scheinker, Executive Director at Stanford Children’s Health and founder of SURF Stanford Medicine. Together, they tackle the inefficiencies buried in hospital-payer contracts and how lack of standardization drives up costs. Dr. Scheinker shares how his team uses operations research and optimization modeling to streamline care, reduce waste, and protect …
In this episode, Ralph Weber is joined once again by compliance strategist Ann Lewandowski to dive deep into the unseen world of healthcare data, who owns it, who profits from it, and what most employer contracts don’t actually protect. They break down the illusion of “transparency” in benefit plans, the legal blind spots of HIPAA, …
Ralph Weber welcomes back Ann Lewandowski to unpack one of the most overlooked threats in benefits: your data. This episode exposes how TPAs and PBMs can legally profit from “de-identified” plan data, why HIPAA offers false comfort, and what transparency should mean in 2025. If you’re a plan sponsor, this is essential listening. 00:00 The …
On this episode of The Benefit Whisperer, Ralph Weber interviews Rachel Strauss, the “PBM Princess,” to expose how pharmacy benefit managers manipulate contracts, rebates, and definitions to extract margin from employers. They break down contract landmines, phony transparency language, weak audit clauses, and the real story behind “100% pass-through.” If you’re an employer, broker, or …
A trillion dollars. That’s how much the U.S. loses every single year, not on doctors or medicine, but on the billing chaos of healthcare. In this episode, Ralph Weber unveils something quietly revolutionary: Noverasys. It’s not just a payment system, it’s a reset button for healthcare costs. One where hospitals get paid instantly, patients stop …
Employers are footing the bill, but locked out of the details. In this episode of The Benefit Whisperer, Ralph Weber pulls back the curtain on how PPO contracts, TPAs, and PBMs are rigged to benefit everyone except the plan sponsor. Featuring insights from public-sector reformer and author Chris Deacon, this conversation breaks down: Why “discounted” …
Guest: Chris Deacon, author of The Great American Healthcare Heist and former Director of Health Benefits, State of New Jersey. Chris joins Ralph Weber to reveal how her team saved $2 billion, including $400M annually on pharmacy spend, by exposing PBM shell games, fixing contracts, and enforcing fiduciary duty. 📌 Topics: How much waste is …
What happens when the surgery saves your life, but destroys your finances? This episode spotlights critical illness insurance, an overlooked tool most Americans don’t understand and few advisors offer. Host Ralph Weber unpacks its history, why a world-renowned surgeon created it, and how it protects real financial lives. From replacing income during recovery to solving …
Ralph Weber sits down with Nurse Deb Ault, a former ICU nurse who walked away from the bedside after a patient died due to profit-driven care. She now runs AIMM, a patient-centered care management firm with a 3% denial rate and Validation Institute–verified results. They talk PPO discount myths, P3CM, proactive navigation, and why DPCs …
What happens when healthcare is free, but access is dangerously limited? In this episode of The Benefit Whisperer, host Ralph Weber is joined by Dr. Raymond Rupert, Canadian physician and founder of RCM Health, to pull back the curtain on Canada’s single-tier system. They discuss: The long and often life-threatening wait times for diagnosis, surgery, …