Most CFOs would never tolerate sloppy spending anywhere else in the P&L… except in the second-largest expense of the business: healthcare.

In this episode of the Disrupt Healthcare Podcast, host Lester J. Morales sits down with Dean Jargo, former CFO and founder of Fair Market Health, to unpack why the traditional fully-insured model is structurally misaligned — and how employers can use free-market, direct contracting strategies to pay less while giving employees better access to care.

Dean shares how his perspective shifted after his wife’s cancer and emergency heart surgery threw his family deep into the healthcare system. From there, he breaks down why insurance networks aren’t really negotiating “for” employers, how minimum loss ratio rules (MLR) incentivize higher claim costs, and why CFOs must get directly involved instead of delegating everything to HR and big brokerage firms.

You’ll also hear how Fair Market Health helps employers buy services like MRIs, surgeries and other procedures directly from providers at a fair price, often:

• Saving 35–45% on individual services purchased direct

• Reducing total plan spend by 10–20%

• Waiving member out-of-pocket costs while still paying providers fairly and quickly

If you’re a CFO, CEO, HR leader or advisor, this conversation will change how you think about your health plan, your broker — and your responsibility to your people.

Show Notes

• Why fully-insured carriers are structurally incentivized for higher claim costs, not lower

• What a fair market, direct-pay model looks like for hospitals, employers and employees

• How deductibles & out-of-pocket for employees show up as accounts receivable on the hospital side

• Why hospital systems obsess over revenue instead of net profit, collection costs and time value of money

• The biggest mindset blocks for hospital administrators and employer C-suit

  Timestamps

• 00:00 – 01:04 | Intro: From Impact to Disrupt Healthcare — and why the Y matters

• 01:05 – 03:21 | Meet Dean Jargo: finance background, free-market mindset, and his wife’s cancer + emergency heart surgery story

• 03:22 – 04:57 | What is Fair Market Health? Creating a truly “fair price” marketplace between buyers and sellers of healthcare

• 04:58 – 08:32 | Who really decides the price of an MRI? The illusion of “negotiated discounts” in traditional networks

• 08:33 – 12:08 | Why carriers don’t benefit from lowering costs: MLR rules, revenue growth and misaligned incentives

• 12:09 – 14:06 | Dean’s biggest surprise: how many high-quality vendors already exist to run better, partially self-funded plans

• 14:07 – 17:46 | The “cost of change” myth and why disruption is actually what employees are begging for

• 17:47 – 20:20 | Transparent pricing + waived out-of-pocket: how buying direct actually increases access to care

• 20:21 – 22:43 | Deductibles vs A/R: the moment Lester realized member cost-sharing is just hospital accounts receivable

• 22:44 – 25:04 | Hospitals chasing revenue vs. focusing on net profit, collection costs and time value of money

• 25:05 – 27:26 | The win–win–win triangle: hospital, employer and employee all benefit in a direct model

• 27:27 – 29:38 | The emotional toll: EOBs, confusing bills and stress stacked on top of serious illness

• 29:39 – 32:00 | On the provider side: revenue myopia and “we’ve always done it this way” thinking

• 32:01 – 33:05 | On the employer side: how CEOs & CFOs delegate benefits decisions into misaligned hands

• 33:06 – 35:08 | Claims analysis 101: what Dean finds when he reprices 12–24 months of claims data

• 35:09 – 36:19 | Access advantage: why direct-pay patients move to the top of the schedule

• 36:20 – 37:36 | Dean’s message to CFOs: get engaged — your health plan is probably your highest-ROI project

• 37:37 – 38:22 | Lester’s example: $3.5M in Rx savings vs $25–30M in extra sales

• 38:23 – 39:23 | Where to find Dean and final call to action for financial leaders

• 39:24 – 40:23 | Closing: why we must disrupt healthcare before it breaks