{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"EP368: How to Successfully Roll Out New Benefit Designs to Employees and New Care Delivery Models at a Provider Organization, With Ashleigh Gunter","description":"People are averse to change. It\u2019s a thing. It\u2019s a thing that affects even those of us who consider ourselves highly educated and\/or very smart. Nobody likes disruption or, even worse, the prospect of disruption and the uncertainty that goes along with that. Nobody likes to feel like the rug just got pulled out from under them or that they\u2019ve lost control of something, especially something important like their health benefits or how they care for patients. Changes to health insurance and healthcare, from any angle, are fraught with stress. A big reason for this is because health and healthcare are filled with so-called \u201cone-way-door\u201d types of decisions and decision points. If I cannot get the care I need today, or if the care I want to provide today to a patient does not go as desired, I feel like the door is one-way: Once I make a decision, I cannot go back. I can\u2019t click \u201cundo\u201d on that and go back through the door and arrive at yesterday. Health decisions, therefore, have a very \u201cyou got one shot at this\u201d kind of feel. And it\u2019s that, right there, that just upped the ante considerably in the stress department for employees and then also for any clinician who is working with patients. It\u2019s life or death, and this is why making changes either to the insurance side or the care side of the equation feels like they will be so disruptive. It\u2019s a big reason why some self-insured employers or even fully insured employers won\u2019t mess with the status quo benefit designs or switch up their EBC (employee benefit consultant) or their ASO\/TPA (Administrative Services Only\/Third-Party Administrator), even if everybody in the entire company is currently complaining about the price and complexity of said status quo (it\u2019s kind of like the devil that you know) and even if it\u2019s possible to offer employees overall better-quality care at lower prices, meaning that everybody in the company could get a raise funded by the sometimes massive savings that could be had. I just heard a union leader the other day, and she said that every worker would have an extra $5000 in their pocket if their healthcare costs were what they should be. So, for many employers, the prospect of disruption is just too much. It\u2019s not in the CHRO\u2019s (chief human resources officer\u2019s) job description to open that Pandora\u2019s box. Nobody gets fired for doing what they did last year\u2014I guess, until they do (one straw or another is gonna break the camel\u2019s back, after all). But in the meantime, we have this fear-induced festering inertia. Let me just point out one thing: Implicit in everything that I just said is the notion that one day everyone will have their familiar insurance card snugly tucked in their wallet, and then the next day, it will be ripped from their bloody fingers in a violent and unexpected fashion. Or, let\u2019s talk about provider organizations now. Say one\u2019s trying to move from the world of fee for service to the world of value-based payment structures with downstream risk, or direct contracts with employers. To do this well, let\u2019s chat about one aspect of this that health systems seem to struggle with that\u2019s been a topic of some conversation lately. There\u2019s an article cautioning that \u201cpracticing at the top of one\u2019s license\u201d and its attendant need for team-based care is a giant fail and\/or a money grab, or it could be. And it could be both of these things, don\u2019t get me wrong. Team-based care isn\u2019t a homogeneous construct. It would be like saying that all movies are bad because Super Baby Geniuses 2 was such a dog.   I mean, team-based care\u2014pretty much like team-based anything\u2014if it\u2019s not implemented well, nobody on the team knows what they\u2019re supposed to be doing and nobody is accountable. There\u2019s no infrastructure supporting it. There was no testing or iteration or discussion about the intent. No one actually on the proposed teams was even consulted about the whole idea. And so, everyone starts to suspect, maybe rightfully or maybe not, that it\u2019s all financially driven and a cost-cutting exercise. On the show today, my guest, Ashleigh Gunter, warns about all of these exact things. You switch something up without going through the proper steps and stages, everybody gets very suspicious. And, nothing for nothing, their suspicion could be the least of the leader\u2019s problems. The initiative\u2019s ensuing failure maybe should be their biggest concern. Which is a shame if something was done in the spirit of better patient care, for example, because there\u2019s tons of research on the immense power of well-functioning teams as just continuing this one example. And there\u2019s just as much research and well-proven case studies showing that innovative benefit designs can be a 365-degree win when they cut out wasteful spending and navigate employees and plan members to high-value care. For all of these reasons and more, I wanted to get Ashleigh Gunter, who is an expert in change management, on the show to talk about how to succeed when you want to change something as touchy as healthcare and health insurance. This all really goes back to the show with Matt Anderson, MD, MBA (EP266) and what Robert Pearl, MD, writes about all the time. It\u2019s a skill we all need to learn to lead change. Many of us had to learn this the hard way because we see our vision so clearly and we want to make it a reality as fast as possible, but the result of our enthusiasm might be that we skip implementation steps that are really not optional.   As Thomas Edison said (and I love this), \u201cHaving a vision for what you want is not enough. Vision without execution is hallucination.\u201d So, to transform anything effectively, we have to put as much effort into the implementation as we do into the strategy. If we don\u2019t do that, then sadly, despite all of the best intentions, whatever we\u2019re trying to do is not gonna work and it might be labeled disruptive. So, I couldn\u2019t be more pleased to have learned a thing or two from Ashleigh Gunter about change management that avoids this disruption label. Ashleigh Gunter is president of Translucent Healthcare Consulting. She also is an expert in change management as aforementioned and how to help align employees and staff so that an organization can move forward together. According to Ashleigh, there\u2019s five steps to effective change management that will ensure success: Having great leadership Creating a case for the change Finding champions, engaging people who have to change so that they can contribute and be supportive Overcommunicating Measuring how things are going and also celebrating small triumphs You can learn more at translucenthc.com.  Ashleigh Gunter, president of Translucent Healthcare Consulting, combines her experience, an understanding of organizational culture, and a practical mindset to meet her clients\u2019 needs. With over 30 years of management consulting experience, Ashleigh has deep expertise in advising in the dramatically changing healthcare market. Ashleigh specializes in helping her clients drive change within their health plans, resulting in increased employee engagement, improved human resources experience, and reduced cost for both the employer and the employee. She believes in challenging the status quo by creating direct relationships between employers and providers. Ashleigh has been a key contributor to several community-owned health plans in states from Washington to Virginia and has been credited with being key to employee participation and support of the plans. In working for Andersen Consulting\/Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, and The Gunter Group, Ashleigh has provided advice and consulting support to Fortune 100 C-suite executives over her career. She has an MBA with a focus in strategic management and organizational change from the University of Texas at Austin and a bachelor\u2019s degree in business administration from the University of Denver with a concentration in finance. 07:46 How does change management go wrong in healthcare? 08:27 \u201cCommunication [of change] in and of itself isn\u2019t change management.\u201d 10:03 What is change management? 11:06 What does great leadership look like in change management? 12:29 \u201cLeadership sets the tone.\u201d 12:38 What makes change management so hard? 13:27 \u201cWhat\u2019s the company reason to make this change happen?\u201d 15:57 What are change champions, and why do you need to create them when changing your benefit plan? 19:18 Why is it important to overcommunicate change? 22:46 Why is it important to measure your successes and communicate those after a change? 24:14 How does change management work on the provider organization side? 28:53 \u201cYou want to ensure you are educating the operational folks.\u201d You can learn more at translucenthc.com.  Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast How does change management go wrong in healthcare? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast \u201cCommunication [of change] in and of itself isn\u2019t change management.\u201d Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast What is change management? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast What does great leadership look like in change management? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast \u201cLeadership sets the tone.\u201d Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast What makes change management so hard? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast \u201cWhat\u2019s the company reason to make this change happen?\u201d Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast What are change champions, and why do you need to create them when changing your benefit plan? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast Why is it important to overcommunicate change? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast Why is it important to measure your successes and communicate those after a change? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast How does change management work on the provider organization side? Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast \u201cYou want to ensure you are educating the operational folks.\u201d Ashleigh Gunter of Translucent Healthcare Consulting discusses #benefitdesign and #deliverymodels on our #healthcarepodcast. #healthcare #podcast   Recent past interviews: Click a guest\u2019s name for their latest RHV episode! Doug Hetherington, Dr Kevin Schulman, Scott Haas, David Muhlestein, David Scheinker, Ali Ucar, Dr Carly Eckert, Jeb Dunkelberger (EP360), Dan O\u2019Neill, Dr Wayne Jenkins, Liliana Petrova, Ge Bai, Nikhil Krishnan, Shawn Rhodes, Pramod John (EP353), Pramod John (EP352), Dr Eric Bricker, Katy Talento, Stacey Richter (INBW33), Stacey Richter (INBW32), Dr Steve Schutzer (Encore! EP294), Lisa Trumble, Jeb Dunkelberger, Dr Ian Tong, Mike Schneider, Peter Hayes, Paul Simms, Dr Steven Quimby   ","author_name":"Relentless Health Value","author_url":"https:\/\/relentlesshealthvalue.com","html":"