Dramatically Reduce your Health Benefit Costs with Josh Butler

For our third episode, we sat down with Josh Butler, President of Butler Benefits, a leading benefits advisory firm in Amarillo, TX. Josh was kind enough to share the mindset and road-tested strategies he’s using with his clients to deliver dramatically lower healthcare costs—an impressive feat in a time when health insurance premiums and deductibles seem to be perpetually on the rise. 

The secret to lowering your health benefit costs

It all starts, Josh says, with having an advisor, or being an advisor, who is bringing creative solutions. A recent client came to Butler Benefits facing a 46% annual rate increase in their health benefits. Josh and his team spent a few days looking over the group’s situation and came back with a solution that cut that down to only a 2% increase in premiums. How did they do it? They weren’t afraid to fire a major insurance company and partner with smaller, more collaborative partners in the community who are willing to compete for his client’s health benefits dollars.  

Josh is quick to mention that these aren’t all proprietary ideas unique to Butler Benefits. A lifelong learner, Josh has crowdsourced strategies from other broker advisors through the Health Rosetta network to bring the best solutions possible to his clients. 

The challenges that hold employers and brokers back

Fear of change and perceived switching costs tend to stand in the way, but ultimately those costs pay off if you’re able to truly deliver a superior health benefits package that saves an employer money. In the beginning, it’s twice as much work for half the money when you look at totally restructuring the healthcare supply chain. But for many employers, this brings massive savings, and when employers see how much lower the costs can be, they become motivated enough to insist on making a change. It’s a big reason why Butler Benefits is renewing so much business this year.

Josh brings his clients some tough love as he helps educate them to the point that they’re willing to make a change. 

Josh says:   

“I’m not blaming you for doing it the way you’ve always done it all these years. You didn’t know any better. But now you know. Now you’re responsible. Now what are you going to do about it? Are you gonna keep doing it the old way? Or are you going to put that aside because you see how bad it is, how many people it’s hurting in this country, and go do something different? We just challenge people that way. What are you gonna do? Are we gonna be part of the problem or are we gonna be part of the solution? And that’s just a choice people gotta make.” 

Tune in to the full episode to hear more from Josh, including how he managed to erase $1.3M in medical debt for 730 people in Amarillo, TX.

We know you’re going to feel truly inspired after this time spent with Josh. To connect with him, visit http://butler-benefits.com.  And to get in touch with Ansel, you can email us at sales@joinAnsel.com.