Latest / Beyond the Paycheck / Why You'll Compare TVs but Not Doctors: The Baldwin Group's Nick Getz on Healthcare's Consumerism Problem and What's Coming in 2027
Transcript
- Kelsey Willock (00:01.26) Welcome Nick Getz National Director of Underwriting and Innovation of Employee Benefits at the Baldwin Group. Happy Friday. Thank you so much for joining us. To get us started, I'd love to have you share with our audience a little bit about your career and background, where you're calling in from in your current role today. Nick Getz (00:17.447) Yeah, thanks Kelsey. It's great to be here and thank you for having me on today. I'm calling in from Park City, Utah, small little ski town here. I serve as our National Director of Underwriting Innovation at the Baldwin Group. We are one of the fastest growing insurance brokerages in the country. We now have over 5,000 employees and are growing rapidly and are super excited about it. I lead kind of our insurance advisory services on the employee benefit side for healthcare specifically. So really kind of figuring out how do we kind of control the cost of healthcare? How do we manage pharmaceuticals? And really what do we do to help our clients and our colleagues best feel supported to be able to navigate an ever changing industry? So super excited to be here and kind of walk through all that today. Kelsey Willock (01:02.178) just a small topic to try to tackle the beast of healthcare. So we're certainly gonna have a lot to talk about today. Before we dive into that and the current complexities of the environment and the world that we operate in, I wanna get to know you personally a little bit better. So can you tell me a little bit about your earliest money memory? Nick Getz (01:05.198) Yeah, I know. It's crazy. Nick Getz (01:23.847) Yeah, mean, my earliest money memory probably was when I was like four years old. I had to work for an allowance. I don't know if anyone else had to ever do that. But, you know, I would get $5 from owing the lawn, $2 for, you know, maybe doing putting my laundry away. Kind of those little small things were probably my earliest memory. And I had a little piggy bank where I would store it all and put it all there. And it kind of was my first memory of like saving because I would save up for things that I wanted. My grandma used to take me to this little like store that we had in our hometown in San Diego where we would be allowed to buy whatever we wanted, no rules, nothing, but we had to have our own money to do it. And that was a big portion. So I would stock up on tons of sugary candy and things that definitely made my mom a little bit upset when I would come home, but it was great. Kelsey Willock (02:14.274) Hopefully not too many cavities. What was your first job and do you remember what you spent your first paycheck on? Nick Getz (02:15.929) well, we're not talking about that today, are we? Nick Getz (02:23.459) Yeah, well, I would say first real job, like first actual paycheck. I worked as a valet at a restaurant and I also worked parking cars too. So I would go and kind of help a nice restaurant and then I would also help park cars. And I was working as a parking attendant down at San Diego State. And this is all during high school. then Yeah, I moved. was promoted to work at the hotel too after that, which is pretty exciting. So, you know, it was definitely interesting work for sure because the people you deal with when you work at a really nice restaurant is pretty interesting, right? But it was awesome. And that was probably like 14 or 15. Kelsey Willock (03:08.236) And do you remember what you spent your first paycheck on? Nick Getz (03:13.818) Um, probably nothing good, if I'm being honest, but I think I probably spent it on a video game or something that, you know, probably was just stupid back in the day. You know, it was like 14, 15 years old. So, yeah, I don't really remember exactly, but I do remember my mom being really upset at me because I didn't save all my money and I spent the majority of my first paycheck. And, you know, that was a, that was a big topic conversation. Kelsey Willock (03:16.494) you Kelsey Willock (03:40.342) least she was trying to instill you know really good values on you. I would say amazing and I hope your parents tune into this. So when you think about how your money story has impacted your career today, how do you think it has shaped how you show up for your people and you think about paying benefits? Nick Getz (03:44.187) For sure, my parents are incredible, so I'm super lucky to have them. Nick Getz (04:07.365) Yeah, so, I'm not directly responsible for employee benefits of the Baldwin Group. We have a whole team that's dedicated to that that do an incredible job every day, kind of making sure our teams are supported and that we feel like we have the necessary materials to be successful. I can tell you about how we think about it from an employer perspective, right, and how we, the Baldwin Group, approach it. You know, we are really focused on, you know, what does the experience look like from kind of top to end. And what I mean by that is how do members and employees work with their employer to understand their health care, their benefits that they're offered, and then also the value of their paycheck, right? What does that really mean and how much are they getting for job and what other things come along with that, right? Things like PTO, things like health benefits, things like ancillary benefits, things like childcare and leave, right? What does that all really mean and how do we help tell the story about what that total compensation looks like. But for individuals, benefits are a big part of every day. But I've always thought that employees and people don't necessarily stay with their employees, don't necessarily stay or make, sorry, they don't make a choice to move to an employer because of employee benefits. They make a choice to move to the employer generally because of opportunity and salary. But I've always thought as the benefit component as a retention tool rather than an attraction tool, right? It keeps people invested and engaged and it helps people kind of feel supported by the company and what they do. And I think, you know, at least my employer does an incredible job at that. Kelsey Willock (05:48.238) And it's really interesting you mentioned, you know, how do you help people better understand the value of their benefits? Because even if they do choose to leave for another opportunity due to pay, the pain of those benefits being potentially lost can actually be really felt after the fact. So if you can better effectively communicate the high value that the benefits are, even if you're getting a $5,000 raise, maybe the benefits at the other company are worth $10,000 less. Nick Getz (06:03.269) Yeah, 100%. Nick Getz (06:17.063) 100%. Kelsey Willock (06:17.26) And so it can be a brilliant retention tool if effectively the value is communicated. Nick Getz (06:23.559) Yeah, and I think as a big part of that too is like, it depends on the situation that you're in, right? Everyone's situation is different. Everyone needs are different. And I don't think, you know, there's a one size fits all. And I think that's why you see a lot of employers now offering a wide variety of choices and a wide variety of benefits because quite honestly, you know, what I need versus what you need, Kelsey, are very different. And I think every person is in a different position and they need different tools to be able to support them. And I think that's one of the things that we're kind of starting to see more and more just more choice and more variety and options Kelsey Willock (07:00.43) Can you give me some examples of how you're more effectively communicating the value as well as how you're allowing for this type of choice, whether it's vendor partners, different tools, things you've built in-house? Nick Getz (07:09.638) Yeah. Nick Getz (07:12.999) So we have an incredible communications director at the bottom of group. love her. name is Lindsay Rank. She's incredible. And I'm super fortunate to work alongside of her. And she has really instilled this message in me. I know she'd be comfortable with me sharing this, that no one learns one time, right? Every time it takes eight to nine times to really understand and learn something. And it takes multiple mediums to do so. A great example of that is maybe I really like text messaging, but someone else really prefers email, right? So having multiple mediums that you're communicating in, but communicating effectively through what channels you already exist. I think we get stuck in this position where we think, wow, we need to pay for this new tool, this new solution, this new way to do something. But in reality, that creates a larger change effect, right? And when people have more change, they get more kind of lost in the sauce. And we want to really try to avoid that. So we try to kind of, you know, really communicate through mediums that are already there, but focus on a single thing. So rather than saying, Hey, you know what, Kelsey, we see you have all these different benefit choices that are available to you. That's really overwhelming, right? What is the goal? What is the, what is your kind of impact that you want to have and focusing on that? Maybe that's a single quarter message. Right, that one quarter is focusing on the cost of healthcare and how to navigate the healthcare. Maybe the second one is, you know, we have great parental leave. Here's what we want to talk about with your parental leave so you understand that and you know how to navigate that space. Maybe the third quarter, we're talking about wellness and wellbeing coming up to the holidays, right? I know I always want to try to be a little skinnier because I'm going to get really fat during the holidays, right? So maybe that Q3 is like, what is your exercise plan? How are you focused on wellbeing? How is your employer supporting you? I know it's a little off topic, but the data that's out there, when people feel supported, they're way more productive, right? And there's a lot of research proving that, and there's also a lot of research proving that when you're healthier and you have better wellbeing as well, collectively, you also are more productive and you have a sense, you have a higher sense of happiness and gratitude overall, both toward your employer and your general life. Kelsey Willock (09:31.224) So I want to shift a little bit into digging deeper on healthcare. Nick Getz (09:35.686) Yeah. Kelsey Willock (09:36.404) One really major topic and theme that often comes up is people really seek care benefits, even well-being benefits when it is urgent. It can be really challenging to help get folks to engage before the urgency happens. Especially since you've said, you know, you're meeting folks where they are, thinking about creative ways to communicate to them when things are top of mind. Can you share a little bit more about how you're thinking about this, helping people focus on the Nick Getz (09:45.916) Yeah. Kelsey Willock (10:06.298) of the care side. Nick Getz (10:09.383) That's a great question. So I'll just kind of start with what I think the challenges are to get there, right? Number one, I mean, just like myself and you, everyone's really busy. The day-to-day aspects of life are very, challenging, whether you have kids or don't have kids, right? There's always something that comes in the way, in my experience, of you making healthcare your number one priority. Right? And I do that myself, right? I talk about this all the time and I'm probably as much of an offender as anybody else. Where my wife on the other hand is incredible about her healthcare and that's something that we see actually pretty commonly with women are way more proactive than men are compared to their healthcare choices. And so when we talk about preventative care, I think there's a misnomer in what preventative care is. So when the Affordable Care Act came out in 2016, Right, really emphasized, sorry, it 2014. When it came out in 2014, it really emphasized the value of preventative care and made a lot of well-being checks free and kind of lab services free. But preventative care really is much more than that. Preventative care is what are you doing day to day? How are you eating? How are you managing your life? How are you kind of engaging? How is your mental health kind of playing into your physical aspect as well? And how do we kind of connect those and how do we help employees and employers understand what that journey looks like to kind of help avoid those chronic conditions? I'll give you a great example. Someone with a chronic condition will spend on average about 3.4 times more than somebody without a chronic condition. And for every chronic condition they have, it exponentially grows. So how do we help people kind of navigate that and make sure they're managing their care, right? So... Perfect example of that preventive care for someone on GLP one is different for preventive care on someone that's not on a GLP one If you're on GLP one, you want to be doing tons of weight training You want to be really making sure you're taking care of yourself and you know Really invigorating that weight loss and supporting that goal and if you're not maybe you want to kind of try to eat healthier and really kind of meet and again I think that's where we talk about meeting people where they are because preventive care is different for every single person and every single person needs something totally different Kelsey Willock (12:28.174) Such a good point because when I think about preventative care, can often be blanketed. Talk to a mental health professional or eat healthy food. I didn't even think about the fact that maybe just recommending eating healthy food might not be exactly that person's preventative care need. So I love how you're thinking about go the extra mile. Where does this person need help? And what is the help that they need at the point they're at? Nick Getz (12:34.47) Yeah. Nick Getz (12:54.629) Exactly, and I think, mean, not to put myself on blast, but I just started a skin routine, and my wife isn't doing a skin routine for a long time. And that's a great example of relative care. Like, skin now is much better, I feel healthier, but I hadn't washed my face. I don't think with like, with face wash, I'd always use body soap, and that was drying out my skin. So I just think that there are small little things and steps that people can take that aren't overwhelming. that can do things, right? To actually improve your overall day to day. And there's a really great book called Atomic Habits that's out there. And Atomic Habits really talks about the way that you make changes by doing simple, small things. It's when you start to throw in a hundred different, and this is where our healthcare system is terrible, right? We give you a hundred different things to do. I gotta tell you, if someone did that, I would do one thing. Right? So being able to think about like, is that one goal you want to have and how are you going to achieve that? It's the same way we were talking about communications. What is that one thing you want to focus on and how do we want to achieve that? And I think that all ties together and simpler is easier. And the less amount of things you have to do to get there, the better it is. Kelsey Willock (14:13.472) I also love that as someone that consistently has been hard on themselves. Why can't you go to the gym four days a week? So I reversed course and said, I'm going to go every Wednesday and that's it. And habit stacking can actually help you get to the three, four days a week. But if you start with an overwhelming goal, you won't do anything at all. Nick Getz (14:20.677) Yeah, you don't have to. Nick Getz (14:26.353) Yeah. Nick Getz (14:35.129) And Kelsey, like one of my colleagues said to me is like, you know, they said that I want to go to the gym every week. they said, just like what you said, they just said, I'm going to go once a week. They didn't pick a day. So they didn't put that pressure on themselves. So like, what if I miss Wednesday because I'm really busy, right? And they started just going once a week. And to your point, those things stack. And that to me is preventative care, right? It's a multitude of things, right? That really stack together to make it work. Kelsey Willock (15:03.766) I absolutely love that. getting deeper into where we see benefits, healthcare breakdowns happen today, it's particularly given your expertise really is in this healthcare side. Where are you seeing the most breakdowns today within the workforce? Nick Getz (15:13.616) Yeah. Nick Getz (15:22.939) So I think the largest challenge is where do you go for care, right? And how do you know where to go for care? So healthcare is probably the only thing in the United States that really doesn't, that we talk about having consumerism, but in the reality, it does not. So think about when you go buy a car. Have you bought a car before, Kelsey? Kelsey Willock (15:47.606) I actually have never bought a car. Nick Getz (15:49.424) Okay, okay for those people that have right you generally or if you buy anything you're shopping around you buy a tv you buy things like that You're generally shopping around you're looking at other options You're saying you know what? want the samsung 55 inch tv i'm going to compare best buy to costco Right and you're going to look at both of those How often have you done that in health care? Exactly, right and there is a differential in price Kelsey Willock (16:07.968) Totally. Kelsey Willock (16:13.719) Never. Nick Getz (16:18.545) for every single provider, every doctor, even if they're all within the same network, say they're all with United, they're all with Sigma, they're all with Etna, they're all with Kaiser, right? Or whatever insurance company you partner with, they all have a different rate that they are paid. And you as the consumer, right, you have the option to know that, but it's really challenging to figure out and really kind of take the time, like I'm gonna call Dr. A and Dr. B and Dr. C, right, to figure out. when I go for this service, how much is it gonna cost? And what's my care gonna be? And then you might not even know, right? And you might not even know that you have other options because I think of, and I'm equally as bad about this, right? And I do this for living. I go to my doctor that I like and I've known for a long time. Are they the most effective? No. Right? Or they could be, but they may not be the most price effective is what I mean, right? And they probably not. Kelsey Willock (16:53.166) and they might not even know. Nick Getz (17:16.711) but I like them and I'm willing to spend a little bit extra money to do that. But the reality is insurance is structured to create a lack of consumerism. You think about your kind of plan today, a lot of people are on either, if you're on a traditional healthcare plan, it means that you have a copay. You pay $30 as an example. You have no idea how much your insurance is paying for that doctor. As a general consumer, right? Kelsey Willock (17:40.578) Right. Nick Getz (17:43.099) When you have a high deductible healthcare plan, you get a little bit more transparent so you can see it because you're the one paying the upfront costs initially. But I just don't think there's that many people taking the time to shop around like they shop for a TV. And it's really interesting because it's probably the most expensive and most important choice that you make. Taking care of yourself, managing your health is probably the thing that should be top of mind, but it's really not. It's kind of at the bottom of the list for most people and they want the easy button. Kelsey Willock (18:13.55) And for me, think about even booking a doctor's appointment recently, it was who's available first. And it was as simple as that. And I'm embarrassed even to say that you're completely right. It was a really important decision that I didn't even think I had the ability really to make a choice beyond when I had the conversation. Nick Getz (18:21.435) Yeah. Kelsey Willock (18:38.156) because we're not given the tools to really assess beyond maybe a, you know, how many stars or rating and reviews the doctor has. It's harder to go deeper into how much is this conversation going to cost and what really is the quality of the service. Nick Getz (18:51.857) Exactly. Kelsey Willock (18:54.914) What benefits, healthcare, or even broader trends in the workforce do you think are going to shape the employee experience most over the next year? Nick Getz (19:04.121) And that is a loaded question. Kelsey Willock (19:06.286) And we've got five minutes left, so no pressure. Nick Getz (19:09.133) Yeah. Yeah. So I'll tell you, my company, whenever I speak, they always put a timer on me because I'm probably, you know, I never am able to do it in time. But I, here's what I think is really going to be. There's a lot of things that are happening, both from a federal perspective and state perspective that are driving changes in healthcare from a regulation perspective. Regulation in my mind is when is kind of a warning sign. Kelsey Willock (19:19.502) you Nick Getz (19:38.055) for when things are not working right per se, or when things have been working wrong for a long time. And there are a lot of great partners out there. There's a lot of great insurance companies. There's a lot of great advisors like the Baldwin Group out there that are really trying to do good in the market and change the way that consumers experience healthcare and really how we help advise on those healthcare decisions. But the reality is, that I think What is really at a precipice here is the cost of healthcare and the cost of medication. And I think the new, and you see that all the time in news and the news articles. I'll give you a great example, right? There are a lot of new medications that are on the market today that cost well over $2,000. If you are an average person, you cannot afford that. That is a really, and those are life-saving medications. You're having to make a choice between putting food on your table for your family or covering your medication. That's a really hard thing to do. The same is true with insulin. Insulin before it was regulated, right, and new consumers came to the market. There was companies that were jacking up the cost of insulin, right, just to make a profit, and people were having to make a choice. That is inherently wrong, right? And I think everyone would agree with that. So what we are seeing now is we're starting to see people start thinking about how we approach healthcare differently. There's navigation companies that are out there that are really helping employers and their employees make a choice. There are PBMs, pharmacy benefit managers, that are offering pass-through transparent cost pricing, meaning that the cost that you are paying is truly the cost that is earned, right? There is not this additional revenue being added in behind the scenes dollars that are happening. So I do think we're heading in the right direction. I just think... when there's a lot of change that's gonna happen in the marketplace and when there's a lot of change, it creates a lot of noise. And so you have to think through about like, know, maybe this year, I think 2027 is gonna be a really noisy year for healthcare, right? Just because of all the change that's occurring, but maybe that means 2028, we end up in kind of a nice calm spot. But I do think change is a positive thing. It just makes people uncomfortable, but it's a really positive thing for us. Kelsey Willock (21:57.516) Right, and you know, I feel like a lot of folks would say we're at a breaking point. And hopefully what that breaking point means is significant change, finding better systems to make healthcare affordable for both the employer and the employee. So couldn't agree more with you. Nick Getz (22:13.531) Yep. Kelsey Willock (22:14.836) So, Nick, I could probably talk to you for another hour, but we've only got a few more minutes. So just want to thank you so much for joining in this conversation on Friday as a quick recap on some of great things that you've shared. I loved how you mentioned how preventative care isn't as simple as we all like to think. It's deeply complex and it's really about what we're doing day to day and meeting people with preventative care that is applicable in the moment. It's not blanketed. The biggest challenge is where to go for healthcare. It's not just thinking about healthcare costs. It's that the fact that we can't really compare cost or service quality right now. I loved how you specifically mentioned we're dealing actually with a lack of consumerism in healthcare. And that is not a great experience for the end user. And then ultimately, regulation is really a warning sign for when things aren't working, but on the hopeful side, change is coming. So thank you so much for being a part of this conversation today. How can our listeners connect with you beyond this conversation? Nick Getz (23:16.785) So I can share my email with you. I'm more than happy to reach out to me via email and ask any questions that they would like as my time allows, right? But we're always open to having a conversation and we're never gonna charge for that conversation. We just really want people to ultimately feel like that there is someone out there looking out for them and supporting them through their insurance journey. Kelsey Willock (23:39.394) Fabulous. Well, thank you so much, Nick. I hope you have a great weekend and thank you for joining the conversation. Nick Getz (23:45.093) Of course, thank you.