Captivated Health with Mark Gaunya, Episode #75

Today’s guest on the Mitlin Money Mindset™ is Mark Gaunya, principal at Borislow Insurance (BI) and the Founder of Captivated Health. Mark is an employee benefits advisor with over three decades of experience. His tireless passion for the industry can be seen by the way he advocates for transparency, consumerism, health, and wellbeing. He is a pioneer in the use of consumer-driven health and wellness plans to lower healthcare costs and improve overall health.

Mark was named as a national Top 30 Benefits Advisor to Watch in 2017 by Employee Benefit News. And in 2014 Employee Benefit Adviser awarded him with the Most Innovative Broker of the Year. Mark is a Member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Health Connector and a member of the Board of Trustees for the National Association of Health Underwriters. He earned his GBA from Wharton and is certified in the ACA and Self-funding by NAHU. Mark is at the forefront of what is taking place in the industry and talks about what we can expect in the future.

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in…

  • Mark’s path to founding Captivated Health [2:41]
  • Where did Mark’s entrepreneurial bug originate? [5:59]
  • Captivated Health, how does it work? [8:30]
  • What are the benefits to the employee? [18:19]
  • How does Captivated help businesses? [23:51]
  • What mindset is needed to embrace what Captivate Health does? [27:44]
  • Will healthcare change in the future? [32:04]
  • How does Mark deal with a constant state of change? [39:41]
  • Marks charitable inclinations and passions [42:46]
  • What Mark Gaunya did today that put him in the right mindset for success? [50:29]

Changing the health insurance dynamic

What is captivated health all about? How does it work? What does it mean to me as an employer, and what does it to my employees and their health? Mark shares that most employers will buy what’s called a fully insured healthcare plan. Meaning they are financing it by transferring 100% of the risk to the health insurance company in exchange for coverage for their employees and not taking on any personal risk for the company. In exchange, you get a premium rate locked in for 12 months with no changes regardless of good or bad performance. At renewal, you figure out what to do with this margin-eating line item, the second largest after payroll, and one with an unsustainable inflation rate that drives prices up for everyone each year.

The question is how does the employer change that dynamic?

The only way you can change the dynamic is to leave that fully insured construct for what’s called the partial self-insured financing structure where you’re actually taking the risk. That sounds pretty scary. You may say I don’t want to be my own insurance company. But Mark assures us that you do. Listen to the episode to hear him explain why!

Will healthcare ever change for the better?

In this episode, we talked a lot about the inefficiencies and ineffectiveness of traditional insurance. Will healthcare change in the future at all? Mark says yes, because of technology and transparency.

Technology is already helping us move from sick care to healthcare. What does that mean? You actually have the ability to do it today. You can wear a device on your wrist that measures how well you sleep, glucose levels, blood pressure, and more. Anything and everything you want to know about your body could be available to you. This is changing heath and how healthcare rewards people for taking care of themselves, something that lessens expenses.

Additionally, the last administration put laws in place that are forcing the healthcare system to be transparent with pricing. The problem with healthcare today is the lack of transparency, when you look at healthcare there is no correlation between price and quality. This is going to change within the next five years.

An attitude of gratitude

Giving back is a core part of who Mark and his business partner Jennifer are. They are very community-focused and enjoy giving back to the communities that they serve. Mark says they have a charitable giving committee and do at least one event each month.

At Thanksgiving, they did dinners for 40 families. They did backpacks for kids in September. Years ago about a week or two before a holiday party, they decided to shake things up so they gave each employee a $100 bill with a letter of instruction asking them to go into the community and do a random act of kindness. The only requirement was they had to bring the story back to the party and tell everybody what they did with the money. Hundreds of short stories were turned into two books called Inspired Act and Inspired Act for Kids.

Resources & People Mentioned

Connect with Mark Gaunya

Bio

Mark is a principal at Borislow Insurance (BI) and the Founder of Captivated Health located in Boston Massachusetts. BI is highly regarded as a leading regional employee benefits brokerage and strategic advisory firm serving employers and individuals. Captivated Health is an innovative solution designed to help middle market employers “Bend the Healthcare Trend” by joining a community of like-minded organizations who change the way they finance their health benefits to take control of their future through insightful, actionable data to make healthcare easier and more affordable for employees and their families.

Mark is an employee benefits advisor with over three decades of experience and a tireless, passionate advocate for transparency, consumerism, health and well-being. He is a pioneer in the use of Consumer-Driven Health and Wellness Plans (CDHP) to lower healthcare costs and improve overall health. He was named as a national Top 30 Benefits Advisor to Watch in 2017 by Employee Benefit News and Employee Benefit Adviser and was awarded Most Innovative Broker of the Year in 2014. Mark is a Member of the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Health Connector and a member of the Board of Trustees as the Legislative Council Chair (NAHU). He earned his GBA from Wharton and is certified in the ACA and Self-funding by NAHU.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Rhode Island and he resides in Hopkinton, MA.

Guests on the Mitlin Money Mindset Show are not affiliated with CWM, LLC, and opinions expressed herein may not be representative of CWM, LLC. CWM, LLC is not responsible for the guest’s content linked on this site.

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