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💥 Ignite your company culture with the Build a Vibrant Culture podcast!
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[00:00:00] Announcer: This is the Build A Vibrant Culture Podcast, your source for the strategies, systems, and smarts you need to turn possibility into purpose. Every week we dive into dynamic conversations as our host, Nicole Greer, interviews leadership and business experts. They're here to shed light on practical solutions to the challenges of personal and professional development. Now, here's your host, a professional speaker, coach and consultant, Nicole Greer.
[00:00:36] Nicole Greer: Welcome everybody to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. My name is Nicole Greer and they call me the Vibrant Coach, and I want to help you build a vibrant culture. And today we have an amazing guest. Her name is Stacy Edgar. Let me tell y'all about Stacy. Stacy is the co-founder and CEO of Venteur, an AI and digital health startup helping employers reimagine health insurance through a consumer-centric lens, which means we're looking at what the people want, the people in the culture. All right. And under her leadership, Venteur works with businesses to lower healthcare costs while empowering employees to feel more confident and in control of their healthcare journey. Before launching Venteur, Stacy's spent 15 years in global development, although she doesn't look like it, she looks like she's 18. We're going to find out what skincare regimen she's on as well. And so we'll figure that out. Spent 15 years in global development and foreign policy dedicated to ending global poverty. So she really cares about people, y'all. She is recognized for her expertise in business development, having helped dozens of organizations generate, don't miss this word, billions in new business across both the public and private sectors. It's amazing to have Stacy on the show. How are you?
[00:01:47] Stacy Edgar: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and this is such an important topic. Culture. It's the heart. Yeah.
[00:01:53] Nicole Greer: Yeah, I'm so glad you're here. And one of the things we talk about in building a vibrant culture is that we've gotta look at all the pieces and the parts and the things. And Stacy, what I have learned in all my years of being in business and running organizations is that people when you go to interview them, they ask this funny question, what's the benefits package? Do people ask this? Or what?
[00:02:16] Stacy Edgar: Yes, 100%. And actually, you know, it's a thing that will keep you from taking a job. It's a thing that will keep you in a job. I actually remember one of the things that held me in my past roles was, what am I going to do for my health insurance? And that's how powerful it is as a retention. I've had a lifelong dream of being an entrepreneur, which, that's what I do today, living the dream, really. But it can it's such a huge draw. And I think also fundamentally it is a value statement of what, where the company stands and how it wants to treat its employees as well.
[00:02:56] Nicole Greer: Well let's unpack that 'cause that's really good. Don't miss what she just said. 'cause it just flowed from her like a little river. Like this is her life helping people with this stuff. But she said it is a value statement. Right. So when the company offers a nice benefits package, it's supporting a core value. What core values are underneath that idea? What do you think?
[00:03:18] Stacy Edgar: Well, I mean, I think there's so many things. So, you know, when you make a new hire, you are basically asking that person and their family to take a bet on you as a company, and you're saying, Hey, we're going to help take care of you, professionally, but we're also understanding that responsibility we have in terms of, we're your way of how you take care of your family through wage and through healthcare. And for better or for worse, we have a system in America where employers provide healthcare to their employees. And that's kind of a, a social contract that's kind of embedded in the tax code. I can get super nerdy on this. I won't for right now, but. But 82 years ago, I counted. 82 years ago, that's when this started to become very mainstream, where employers were giving healthcare to their employees and it's been modified. And so then basically how an employer lives up to that social contract really tells you a lot about who they are and that it can make a difference in some of the biggest moments of your employees' lives. Are they supported or are they wracked with debt and likely not, not able to get the care that they need. And both of those have a huge, huge impact on the bottom line that we don't always realize. But anyways, I could go on and on for this forever. I'm, I'm curious what you also see, it's maybe like a throwaway question, but when people are interviewing for job, they want to have a good answer.
[00:04:46] Nicole Greer: Oh, they absolutely do. That's they absolutely do. And, and they, they want you to make it easy. You know, I worked with a bank here locally Stacy, and that bank used to put out like this offer letter, and when they put the offer letter out, it would say, you know, here is what your health insurance will be. If you just have you on your health insurance, now we know that you have three children. 'cause we've interviewed you. And although you don't ask the interview question, how many children do you have? People reveal. And so, uh, we've offered you the position. We know you have three children and we know you have a husband and they're all going to be on the insurance.
[00:05:20] And so here's what it's going to cost. Right. So it was just all laid out in the offer letter, uh, so beautifully. And then also, you know, details about the 401k and details about the health and wellness program that we talked about before we started the recording. You know, all of that was laid out so beautifully because here's the thing, everybody, when we offer somebody a position, we're trying to sell the company. It's a value proposition both ways, right? Is this a, is the employee of value to me, and is the company of value to the employee? Is this a win-win? I mean, I think that's a big part of it.
[00:05:58] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. No, you're completely right. And you, um, it's so funny work. We work with a lot what we do just. By way of
[00:06:05] Nicole Greer: Tell us what you do. Yeah.
[00:06:07] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, we, we have, we're a new employee benefits platform. We've been around for five years. So, uh, and serve over nearly a thousand clients that in aggregate employ over 300,000 employees, if you could believe that.
[00:06:22] And what we found across those employers is that you can see right off the bat. If there's some employers who are checking off the box, they know I gotta provide benefits to my employees, like check, check, check. But they're, you know, like they're working with the broker, they're going through the motions. And they know they need to do it, but it's kind of a hassle.
[00:06:42] Nicole Greer: Right. That's how we all kind of think about insurance. Right.
[00:06:45] Stacy Edgar: Insurance is not fun. So I don't mean to say that in a judgmental way, but then there's some who are like, you know, they really think about the lives of the employees that they know on their team. And they're like, oh, so and so really needs this hospital, or they would benefit from this program and take such pride in crafting a wellness strategy where they're like, I think this would really take care of this person. So you have a lot of different perspectives and what I find is that if you are kind of checking off the box in one part of the business, uh, right or wrong, you might be checking off the box in other parts of your business too.
[00:07:20] So what that shows is how you approach benefits. It's, it's an opportunity to act with intention and that's, that's the heart of building strong culture. Acting with intention in terms of the behaviors you want to promote and the behaviors you don't want to promote. Right? So.
[00:07:38] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Well you said this really interesting thing and I said, oh, I hope you say this when we record. So you were talking about the wellness program. So I just want to share this real quick. I was so impressed. I worked with this company down in South Carolina and they have a beautiful campus like. It's like a really pretty place to work. And the owner has these statues and fountains and landscaping and a little pond. I mean, the thing is gorgeous and he really believes in, um, running and walking and he's a big runner. And so, uh, he encourages his team and when he bought his land to build his building on, he built it next to a YMCA. And so he gives people a membership to the YMCA and he buys them all the top of the line, Fitbit, and they have a contest who gets the most steps in. And so like what you'll see people all the time on his property walking around, having a walk and talk or a meeting on their feet, uh, meet on your feet and you know, so he's got like a whole way they talk about it. And some use the Fitbit and some don't, but they all liked getting it. So will you talk about what you were sharing before?
[00:08:49] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, so, you know, it's so funny because people put wellness programs like, um, get a Free Fitbit or Apple Watch or, um, if you do these steps, well, you'll earn this cash rebate or maybe you get a free Peloton bike as part of your health insurance package. And the logic that most people take is, if I do this, I'm going to make my workers healthier. Then therefore I'm going to lower the cost of care. And it makes sense. But what different researchers have found is that that's actually not true. Uh, what happens actually is that you have this selection bias of the people who cared about the Fitbit and people who cared about the, who like wanted the Peloton in the first place, which tends to be more fitness oriented or wellness oriented people. They tend to self-select into those companies. So some of these perks end up being signals of like, Hey, we're a company that exercises and promotes wellness and healthy habits, and then you're going to attract people who prioritize in their life. I want to prioritize healthy habits, and then that obviously has an impact on other things like you, you know, absenteeism or productivity there. You could quantify it a lot of different ways, but it ends up being this, uh, kind of marketing technique that becomes self-fulfilling of like, this is who we are. We're a group of people who have these healthy habits and, and it becomes infectious. And self-sustaining versus the opposite can be true.
[00:10:24] We've all had this friend who maybe had a habit they shouldn't have. Um, I know my vice is eating way too much sugar and if I'm around people with sweet tooth, I'm going to eat a lot more sugar. And it's sometimes that peer pressure in the environment does make a big difference in terms of what habits we we set for ourselves. And so the signaling on your benefits package, it will attract people who care about healthy habits and then also help reinforce it and incentivize it.
[00:10:54] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Oh, I love what you're saying. And it made me think of another thing, just real quick, so I want to share another little story. Listeners. So I have a client, they're out in Colorado. It's called Mineral Life, and they make supplements, right? So they sell vitamins, minerals. You know, all the stuff and the leader, uh, of the company, he went to school to become a chiropractor, but he studied with a gentleman who, um, taught him all about vitamins and how you can actually cure yourself by feeding yourself the right foods and all this kind of stuff. And he saw people who had like diabetes and cancer and things like this turn it around just by what they put in their body in terms of, um, vitamins, minerals, and, and eating the proper foods. And he was like forget this chiropractic thing. I'm going to start a vitamin company. And so like just radical change in his life, right?
[00:11:44] Well, one of his core values, going back to like building a vibrant culture, one of the things we do in a vibrant culture is we declare these things are important. Just like our benefits declare what's important, right? And so, uh, one of his, you'll love this, Stacy, is, uh, mind the Terrain and they're in Colorado Springs in the mountains. And so that means two things. One, we take care of the environment. We mind the terrain. Terrain meaning the earth. And so they, they do like the trash pickup thing and do all the stuff, earth day and all that stuff. But then also mind, this terrain. So they don't
[00:12:19] Stacy Edgar: Oh, I love that.
[00:12:19] Nicole Greer: They don't have like a Coke machine.
[00:12:22] Stacy Edgar: Okay.
[00:12:23] Nicole Greer: They don't have the snack machine with the stuff. They have like bowls of apples laying around and stuff. I mean, like, you know, like you can't, it's almost like disingenuous, right? You can't be a vitamin company and then, you know, have
[00:12:36] Stacy Edgar: That's probably where I need to be.
[00:12:39] Nicole Greer: Me too.
[00:12:39] Stacy Edgar: I'm going to be the gal with the clandestine fridge of Diet Coke. But, I mean the environment matters so much. Right. And the workplace affects your health so much. And so there's an opportunity. I love that. Mind the terrain. I noticed something. So one thing that's different about how we offer benefits in our product is that we take advantage of a new law that took place 2020 and allows employers to give cash instead of a group health plan. Employees still have to buy insurance with that money.
[00:13:13] And, um, but they get to decide. All of a sudden you go from one to two options to literally a hundred, and you get to decide maybe I want to keep some of that money as cash for myself to like, spend on my health and how it's translated to culture at our company. So it makes for a very personalized, individualistic benefit, and we're saying to anybody who joins our company, health insurance is scary. It's confusing, but we believe you can learn it. And when you do, you're going to be healthier and wealthier because you've learned it. And we believe you should be the author of that journey. And so we've got this very individualistic culture in some ways. And I was thinking about, oh man, what joins us all together culturally, and we're kind of a company of extremes. Like we've got one person who's like a 27 Star Michelin chef. We've got another who's like, uh, 10 K is too short. I only do 50 K. I'm like, okay. Whoa. Show off, man. But like, these, like extreme, passions when people, and they're so different. You have our youngest employee's 23, our oldest is 64. You've got this respect for diversity. And it's like you do you. And I respect that and it kind of ties to like the product we're building and the benefit strategy too of like, Hey, we believe in that personalization and we're trying to create this space of like, be you and that's okay. We welcome you. That was a recent aha. I don't know if that makes sense, but, uh, like it, like these subtle things. Yeah.
[00:14:45] Nicole Greer: Yeah. 'cause So you just said, you know, you have somebody who's 27 and somebody who's 64. So let's say you have two females. One is, one is 64 and one is 27. Okay. The 27-year-old might be thinking, should I have a baby? So she needs healthcare that's pointed towards this goal in her life and the vision for her family and what she wants to do, right?
[00:15:07] Like, she's like, do I want to do that? You know, I need the appropriate healthcare so that I can a, have a great birthing experience, right? And go to the pediatrician and do all the things. And then you've got a 64-year-old, which I'm only five years away from, uh, who's sitting there thinking. You know, what do, what do I need to make sure I'm doing, you know, to make sure that my healthcare. So it does need to be personalized, you know, and one of the things we were talking about is, uh, flexibility in healthcare coverage is becoming a priority for employees and employers. But like, I, I just don't even think we even had the option before. It was like, I, when I first joined the first company, they're like, this is what you get. And I was like, thank you. I mean, we were just grateful.
[00:15:49] Stacy Edgar: to have health insurance. You're totally right. I remember I also finished school in the financial crisis and went a year, right, like. You know, it makes you stronger. That's, I can say that in hindsight, right? It's nearly 20 years ago, but. Yeah, I remember the first job I had, I was like, and it has benefits.
[00:16:08] Nicole Greer: Like hot dang.
[00:16:09] Stacy Edgar: That was such a milestone. Yes, exactly.
[00:16:12] Nicole Greer: I get to call dad and tell him I'm off.
[00:16:15] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, well actually it was pre-ACA. I, actually, this is even scarier. I didn't have health insurance, like when I was 23, I didn't have health insurance. I just like, yeah.
[00:16:28] Nicole Greer: about if you had a 23-year-old, all the folks that are my age that didn't have insurance rolling around out there.
[00:16:34] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. Yeah, actually, and I had another friend, um, this was before you could stay on your parents' plan. And, um, and I had another friend, she got hit by a car and then didn't tell her parents because she was like, I don't want them to have to pay. And I was like, oh my gosh. Like, but also didn't have health insurance that year.
[00:16:51] So, in retrospect, we've had discussions about this. We did some scary stuff when we were young. I'm glad actually that the law has changed and allows people to stay on their parents' plan for longer. Um, but um, can I tell you about one of the 27 year olds on our team?
[00:17:07] Nicole Greer: I would love to hear about them. Yes.
[00:17:09] Stacy Edgar: Okay. So he decided to buy as little insurance as possible. He's on a catastrophic plan, so it means that something happens to him, he's covered, but that deductible and out-of-pocket maximum is 9,200. So the first $9,000 he's gotta pay himself. That sounds steep. But the way we organized our benefits, he's actually got a $20,000 health wallet. So he's like telling our whole team, I'm buying a new bed, I'm going to the gym. I'm trying out this wellness program. And also when you're 27 and insurance doesn't really, you know you need it, but like, sometimes it's an abstract benefit. Once we get into like the baby making age or like older, it becomes very, very real. But in our twenties it's not always a real benefit. So it's allowing him to take some of the cash, decide how to spend it and be an actual benefit, as decided by him. And it's wild because this then became, uh, spread like wildfire throughout the company and it changed actually how others approach their benefits too. Like, whoa, do I need that platinum PPO plan, or am I, why am I spending this amount of money to go to the doctor twice a year. I was like that, that's one very expensive doctor's trip. Um, if you think like the cost of care is $24,000 per year right now per employee, so yeah, it's $12,000 a doctor's trip if you're, you're going twice a year. So it's, it's just a kind of a way to reclaim the benefit and the value.
[00:18:41] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. And so you had to school me before we started. You talked about, and I just want to get this language out there for people. All my HR guys and gals, they know. But if you're listening, um, you wrote an article for benefitspro.com and it's called Unlocking ICHRA: three questions to revolutionize your employee benefit strategy. Will you explain to people what an I-C-H-R-A is? It's what we're talking about, but like tie it all together for us.
[00:19:13] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. So it's a tax term. And, before people glaze over on me, a lot of things in healthcare are tied to the IRS, so forgive me there, but what, what it means is that employers can give cash instead of a group plan. So say, you know, you are spending nine, $10,000, $20,000 a year per employee, you would instead give that amount of money to your workers, and they would then-- we've built a marketplace that shows them, they have to buy insurance to claim the money, but then how they spend the
[00:19:46] Nicole Greer: Let's just say that like they can't go, they can't go buy new outfits. Okay.
[00:19:51] Stacy Edgar: No, no, that's correct.
[00:19:54] Nicole Greer: Okay.
[00:19:55] Stacy Edgar: Yes. They have to buy a plan that's ACA compliant meaning that like protections on preexisting conditions are there. The protections on coverage is there. Like if you need a million dollars of claim, the carrier has to pay a million dollars of claims and can't put limits on it. So these are, um, uh, consumer friendly plans and, um, people think of it like the 401k of healthcare. So like once upon a time, every company in the world had pensions. Now, you know, over the eighties and nineties that shifted to 401k where the employee was starting to self-direct that money in the investment. It is a similar shift, but the difference is that, you know, our needs are so different from one another. It just allows the family to have a greater voice in how, um, the money is spent on their behalf. And to just say like, Hey, if I want to be proactive about my health and buy a new bed and focus on sleep. That money's theirs. If I need, have a chronic condition that I am managing, I've got money for prescriptions, specialty copays, I can figure out what's the right combination of insurance and cash that protects me.
[00:21:05] And the biggest thing for employers to know is that it usually saves the business 20 to 30% on cost. We've seen over and over this has meant, you know, a company could avoid layoffs, a company could give more for less so, and then ideally, also the employee has this flexibility to manage costs on their side as well. So that's what we love about this. At the end of the day, it's about personalization. It's about affordability. It's about agency, as well, for the worker.
[00:21:32] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And so, uh, unpack the word agency for everybody.
[00:21:37] Stacy Edgar: Yeah.
[00:21:37] Nicole Greer: I stand in choice about what I get, right?
[00:21:41] Stacy Edgar: I have a choice. And I'm empowered to make said choice. Yes.
[00:21:47] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And you know, I think that's really exciting to people. We talked about, um, the fact that this idea, it's going to boost morale. 'cause people have agency, autonomy, choice. There's just all these really yummy words that come along with this rather than this is what we get.
[00:22:06] Stacy Edgar: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Nicole Greer: And it might be great what people get, but they're like, this is what we get.
[00:22:10] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. Yeah. You know, though, sometimes when we're talking to HR, HR takes a lot of pride in benefits and rightfully so.
[00:22:16] Nicole Greer: 100%.
[00:22:17] Stacy Edgar: And they'll also say like, our employees can't possibly choose. And um, and I think about this example, so I'm recently of the age where all my friends were having babies and who's the last person you tell that you're pregnant? It's HR, it's your company. And like I've had friends, right, who like they're like showing up full belly and they're like, I'm not pregnant. I don't know, I just gained weight. What are you talking about? Like this, this like, 'cause you're worried about, am I going to be mommy tracked? Is this going to be like frowned upon? And there's still this worry. So what this means is that the company, even the best intentioned HR and company leadership is working on incomplete information because you don't, you don't always want to tell your coworkers or your employer that something like that's going on with you, whether it's an illness or a happy event like starting family. So, yeah.
[00:23:13] Nicole Greer: Yeah. That's so good. That's so good.
[00:23:15] Announcer: Are you ready to build your vibrant culture? Bring Nicole Greer to speak to your leadership team, conference or organization to help them with their strategies, systems, and smarts to increase clarity, accountability, energy, and results. Your organization will get lit from within! Email her at nicole@vibrantculture.com and be sure to check out Nicole's TEDx talk at vibrantculture.com.
[00:23:47] Nicole Greer: All right, I think that this employee health and wellbeing improvement and the personalization, it is going to shift and change things. I'm curious, can you tell me about a company that might have had some successes that were as a result of changing over to this kind of program?
[00:24:04] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, it's just my favorite question. There's, there's so many. There is a car dealership actually we work with in New Mexico, and they actually, so they saw that 20% cost decrease, and on top of that, their participation jumped. So that more people were on the plan and were opting in. And we worked with a broker on this implementation with this group. And the broker, we planned out open enroll 'cause we, we were nervous like okay, will employees feel comfortable choosing. This was actually kind of one of the very early years of our company. And one of the employees stopped the broker in the bathroom. Actually, he did this open enrollment meeting first, and it was crickets, and he was so nervous. He was like, oh my gosh, no one was asking me questions. I was so nervous about this.
[00:24:54] Nicole Greer: Right. Is this going to work.
[00:24:55] Stacy Edgar: Stopped him in the bathroom and they're like, you know, I looked at these three plans and I looked at this and it was such a detailed conversation, and it was so clear that the employee had shopped. And the employee said, man, I feel like I got a raise 'cause I'm picking what I want and I'm picking whether or not to have a payroll deduction. It was just so shocking. Also, mostly I like that visual, right, of the employee, like coming up to you, stopping you, like they're stopping you in the hallway and they're stopping you in the bathroom, right? Like that's and that's, that's really in my view, best case scenario where, um, employees have surprised you that actually they can choose. They can learn. And, and um, that's so big 'cause usually most of us are learning about health insurance when we're in crisis, and that's not the greatest time to learn. So it's like, yeah,
[00:25:45] Nicole Greer: That is a good statement. Don't miss that y'all.
[00:25:47] Stacy Edgar: You know, think about like, I don't mean to be a downer here, but like, think about the stats on medical debt. It's the leading cause of bankruptcy in America and it's, in my view, preventable. And part of it is we should be talking about health insurance like we talk about credit cards, we talk about mortgages. It's one of the biggest financial decisions you make. And if you know, that's the thing I was taking for granted in my past jobs when I was like, oh yes, I got my plan. Gonna forget about it. Then you're really putting a lot of trust in someone else doing a really good job for you. And a lot of us are lucky. We have that great HR person in our lives, but some of us aren't. And also some of us, maybe we should take a look, even if they did a great job. It's just too much to gamble on.
[00:26:35] Nicole Greer: Yeah. Yeah. So as you're speaking, um, I, I really want to reinforce what you were saying about like, we, we almost like, we don't know what we have until we have to know what we have. So what, so I have a little coaching methodology. I'm going to just share it. Uh, many of you listeners have heard this before, but it bears repeating. The first thing in it is self-awareness, right? And so if somebody says, what are your benefits? You're like, I, I don't know. I don't know what they are. I mean, I know I have vision and, you know, whatever, but you don't know. It really behooves you as a person to get straight on what it is you actually have so that you're prepared, uh, for what the future holds. Right?
[00:27:14] And then the second thing in my methodology is habits. And so one of the things you should do, and my assumption, Stacy, is that people probably sign up, but then they have an option to revise what they pick. Is that true?
[00:27:27] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, 100%.
[00:27:28] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And so when do, when do they do that? Is it like a once a year thing? What is it?
[00:27:33] Stacy Edgar: It's once a year or if something's changed in your life, like moving, having a baby, getting married, that kind of thing.
[00:27:39] Nicole Greer: Yeah. And so, you know, you need to have a habit of kind of like checking in on things, right? And looking like, what is going on in my life? You know, when, when am I going to check in? When am I going to check the boxes? Do an assessment of what's going on in my life. I have to have that habit. For example, you said it's just like your finances. So they have this thing in business called a balance sheet. You know? And so your balance sheet has your assets and your liabilities, right? And so when your health insurance comes out of your personal, uh, liabilities, you gotta figure out what's on the asset side. So, you know, you gotta have the habit of checking those things, right?
[00:28:13] And then the third thing is integrity. I think a lot of times people, um, they want to give control to the world. Instead of taking control for themselves, you know, like I was a victim instead of a victor. So that's part of my coaching methodology. I'm like, how can you win? You know? And you could win by putting yourself in the driver's seat on your benefits and the next right step.
[00:28:35] So like if you're sitting there thinking, well, this is all well and good, Stacy, but I don't run HR at my company and I'm listening to this. Well, here's what we might do, is we might take Stacy's contact information, which is right here in the show notes and take it up to HR and say, Hey, I listened to the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. You should listen to this episode and maybe check out Stacy and Venteur see if this is something we could look at. Um, and then the last thing in my coaching methodology's energy. And so let's give it, let's put a little behind this. Let's give people what they want. What do you think Stacy?
[00:29:12] Stacy Edgar: I love that. I love that. I think also, you know, regardless of whether you partner with us or not, something we're really passionate about is that health insurance literacy piece.
[00:29:22] Nicole Greer: Yes.
[00:29:23] Stacy Edgar: We want people to feel agency in their lives no matter what. And knowing what a deductible is, knowing what an out-of-pocket maximum is. I promise, we've got different ranges of content on YouTube or TikTok, if that's your flavor.
[00:29:37] Nicole Greer: All the places.
[00:29:38] Stacy Edgar: To make it fun. Um, but these are really, they're important terms to know. And, um, like I, I actually have a calculator for new moms. This is how you financially plan for the baby and how you optimize for it. I wish somebody had sat me down at like age 22 or 23 when I was coming into the job market and said, open up an HSA and max it out. And then let compound interest do its thing and then you'll have enough money for the babies. Or if that's not in your cards for whatever reason, like you don't want that, you got extra money for retirement. And I just wish I knew that when I was younger. Babies cost, delivery costs $18,000 now, that's the average cost.
[00:30:19] Nicole Greer: Is it really?
[00:30:20] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. So.
[00:30:22] Nicole Greer: I had my last one 26 years ago. Wonder what the increase is.
[00:30:26] Stacy Edgar: We don't, we won't go there today, but that's also when things go well. Right?
[00:30:31] Nicole Greer: Right? When there's no problems, you're in. You're out. Goodbye.
[00:30:36] Stacy Edgar: Yes, it could be a lot more. So that's also where, um, it's one of my happiest things to do. Like, help a family plan financially for the happy moments.
[00:30:48] Nicole Greer: Yeah, so good.
[00:30:50] Stacy Edgar: I love the coaching mindset and what you said was so powerful about, you know, this opportunity to be a victor or a victim, I guess, right?
[00:31:01] Nicole Greer: I mean, really we stand in so much choice. That's why I love when you said, you know, you have agency. Here's what I know. I like choices. I don't like going to a restaurant and they're like, you can have chicken or chicken or chicken. I don't like that. I mean, I like chicken, but I want to know if I can have other things.
[00:31:16] I might pick chicken, but I want to know that I could have shrimp or I could have this. Right? And so people just like choice, we want to choose what's going to happen and what you're saying is that you need to make an informed choice. You need to know these terms.
[00:31:32] And dare I say this, I think a lot of times we kinda have to grow up and be like, okay, oh, I have insurance now. What does that mean? Yeah. And that's an integrity piece, right, in Shine. I'm fully in integrity. This is my responsibility. I need to understand my insurance. Um, and then we have to also have the people on the company side, the organization side, that can explain it.
[00:31:55] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. You're totally right. And do you remember what happened last fall with the CEO of UnitedHealthcare? Unfortunately, he got shot and
[00:32:05] Nicole Greer: Oh, up in New York City?
[00:32:07] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, the outcry was actually against UHC rather than against the killer. And that to me was working in healthcare, such a wake up call of like how angry we are as a society at health insurance.
[00:32:23] Nicole Greer: Culturally, yes.
[00:32:25] Stacy Edgar: Yeah. I know those things are really somber to talk about, but I think this is also, you know, what gives me some hope in what we do is that it it, it gives an opening for each person to say, I have the ability to change my future.
[00:32:43] One of the most powerful things for me --we use our own product for healthcare-- was actually firing an insurer who wronged me. And maybe I'm taking it to a dark place, but, in my mind, I was like, you're fired, like, on the screen, like on myself. But it, it felt so good to hold a vendor accountable and then to make a choice. And I think that's also, if you step into this choice, you step into this is what I want. Uh, then you, you feel a little powerful. And also when you're starting to see these things, the big things in the headlines and it's reckoning for change and like you feel like maybe I can do something about it. And if there's one takeaway for anybody, you know, all your listeners
[00:33:27] Nicole Greer: Yeah, give us the final takeaway. absolutely.
[00:33:30] Stacy Edgar: Is you've got power and step into that power. And in terms of our product, like thinking about benefits that can literally transform your health and your wealth. And also me, you gave my bio earlier. I'm a big thinker. I started off my career wanting world peace and trying to solve global hunger. I'm now of the mind we, we can fix American health insurance. I believe it to be possible, but it takes each one of us, um, stepping up and stepping into being a more informed consumer. I think that's the start.
[00:34:05] Nicole Greer: That's right. That's right. Yeah. All right. Well I have had a ball talking about benefits with Stacy Edgar. Yeah, I mean, I just am like woken up over here. I'm excited about the rise of personalization and flexibility and employee benefits. So, if you're listening to this, you're like, we gotta do something. You gotta do something, you gotta think about it. So here, here's what you can do is you can get up with Stacy. So Stacy, how do they find you? What's the best place to find you?
[00:34:32] Stacy Edgar: Yeah, I'm on socials, so Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram. We can also reach me through our website, venteur.com. And, uh, if there's a question you have, like one of the things we do on social media through our company accounts is answer people's questions about health insurance, regardless of whether you're our customer or not. So feel free to DM us, to email us and we're excited to get to know you all and be part of this amazing community that you've created. So thank you for inviting us in.
[00:35:02] Nicole Greer: Yeah, it's been my absolute pleasure to have you. Okay, so she's on the Facebook and also Venteur Health has its own page. Also Venteur Health on the X, previously known as the Twitter. Um, she's on Instagram, she's on LinkedIn. You can get, get up with her personally on there. And it's Stacy Edgar S-T-A-C-Y-E-D-G-A-R and then also, um, Venteur has its own healthcare link on there as well on LinkedIn. So, Stacy, it has been a pleasure to hang out with you. I know you're from California, but she's over in the Nashville today, so I don't know what you're doing tonight, but I hope you have a, uh, delicious hot chicken Nashville sandwich is what I'm hoping for you in your life today.
[00:35:44] Stacy Edgar: Thank you.
[00:35:45] Nicole Greer: Yeah. All right everybody, it's been another episode of the Build A Vibrant Culture podcast. Go down. It'll just take a hot second and click the like button and will you leave a little love note for Stacy. She's invested her time, her energy and her care in you. And as you heard, she wants to change the world, so give her a little love. So she'll keep on going. Thanks so much everybody for listening. Thank you, Stacy!
[00:36:06] Stacy Edgar: Thank you.
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