Unveiling Hidden Fees in Weekly Claims: What Plan Sponsors Need to Know

Episode 433 of Relentless Health Value dives into the complexities of weekly claims wires that self-funded employers receive. Host Stacey Richter speaks with Justin Leader about the hidden fees embedded in these claims, including shared savings fees, prior authorization fees, prepayment integrity fees, pay and chase fees, and TPA claims review fees. Learn how these undisclosed charges impact plan sponsors and why transparency is crucial for fiduciary responsibility. This episode is a must-listen for plan sponsors, HR executives, and healthcare entrepreneurs seeking to understand and manage their healthcare costs better.

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I am going to use the term TPA (third-party administrator) and ASO (administrative services only) vendor kind of interchangeably here. But these are the entities that a plan sponsor—for example, a self-insured employer is a plan sponsor—but these plan sponsors will use to administer their plan. And one of the things that TPAs and ASOs administer is this so-called weekly claims wire.

Every week, self-funded employers get a weekly claims run charge so they can pay expenses related to their plan in weekly increments. The claims run usually comes with a register or an invoice. This invoice might be just kind of a total (“Hey, plan. Pay this amount.”). Or there might be a breakdown like, “Here’s your medical claims, and here’s your pharmacy claims.” Maybe there’s another level down from that of detail if the plan or their advisor is sophisticated enough and/or concerned enough about the fiduciary risk to dig in hard about what the charges are actually for.

Dana Erdfarb was the first one to really bring to my attention just the level of hidden fees that are buried (many times) in these claims wires … because when I say buried in the claims wire, I mean not charged for via an administrative invoice. These hidden fees are also not called out in the ASO finance exhibit in the contract, by the way. So, yeah … hidden.

In this healthcare podcast, we’re gonna talk about the five fees that tend to be tucked in to many claims wires. We also talk about one bonus—not sure if it’s a fee—one bonus way that plan sponsors give money to vendors in ways the plan sponsor might be unaware of and then I’ll cover the bonus:

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