Is It Finally the Moment for Alternative Plan Design?

Employers are under growing pressure to control healthcare costs while improving access, outcomes, and the member experience. That has renewed interest in alternative health plan designs that challenge the traditional carrier model, but questions remain about whether these approaches can deliver meaningful change at scale.

In this Second Opinion webinar, Christina Farr will speak with Owen Tripp, CEO and Co-Founder of Included Health; Fay Rotenberg, President & CEO of Firefly Health; and Adam Stavisky, Business Advisor and former SVP of Total Rewards at Walmart, about what alternative plan design actually means in practice.

The conversation will explore what employers are trying to solve, how newer models differ from traditional plans, where the economics work, what makes implementation difficult, and what employers should look for when deciding whether a different approach is worth the change.

Expect us to cover:

1. What is broken in the traditional health plan model?

• Where are employers seeing the biggest problems today: cost, access, care delivery, networks, member experience, or incentives?
• What are large employers still not getting from traditional carriers?
• Which problems actually require a different plan model rather than another point solution?

2. What makes an alternative plan genuinely different?

• What has to change structurally before a plan should really be considered “alternative”?
• Can navigation, virtual care, and benefit design meaningfully improve outcomes without changing the underlying network?
• Where are newer models truly changing how care is delivered?

3. What would make an employer take the risk?

• What evidence would a large employer need before moving away from a traditional plan structure?
• How much disruption are employers willing to accept in exchange for lower costs or better outcomes?
• What clinical, financial, and member experience measures matter most when evaluating a new model?

4. Do the economics actually work?

• Where do alternative models have the strongest potential to reduce total cost of care?
• How should employers distinguish meaningful savings from cost shifting?
• How long should it take before a purchaser can determine whether a redesigned plan is actually working?

5. What gets difficult at scale?

• What changes when these models move from smaller populations to large, geographically distributed employers?
• Where do provider access, network coverage, implementation, and care continuity create friction?
• Which parts of the traditional system are still difficult to replace?

6. Is the market ready?

• Are employers more willing to consider alternative plan designs today than they were a few years ago?
• What still needs to improve before these models become mainstream?
• If these approaches succeed, how different could employer-sponsored healthcare look five years from now?