Episodes

"I think innovation is supposed to be hard. That's why it's innovation.” - Seth Denson “Better consumption requires a lot more education.” - Trey Marinello "Don't compare GLP-1s to working out, because if they were working out, they wouldn't need the GLP1s." - Danish Nagda “I think what RFK has done with the MAHA movement is he's gotten people interested in health again.” - Jonathan Lopez Seth Denson, Trey Marinello, Danish Nagda, and Jonathan Lopez joined me for the most ambitious podcast w...

"Our business is predicated on two things: consolidating things that would otherwise be disparate, and then using that as a trusted chassis to communicate and engage effectively." - Ryan Coplon Ryan Coplon, co-founder of HealthWallet, joined me to discuss why improving member engagement actually reduces health plan expenses, how we get members to understand their healthcare, and what the “perfect” employer health plan would look like. In my opinion, solutions like HealthWallet are something of...

If you'd like your question answered on next month's episode, call/text 469-213-6381 and leave us a voicemail/text. Welcome to our new monthly podcast series, Last Month In Healthcare! Each month, producer Nathaniel joins me to discuss the previous month's podcasts, headlines, and listener-submitted questions. This episode covers healthcare news from February 2025, including: - the start of the Make America Healthy Again commission - executive orders to make healthcare prices more transparen...

"I think that's the difference with a contagious community. Like, I want to bring other people that I like into this community." - Scott Smith Scott Smith, President of True Network Advisors, joins the show for a third time for this podcast filmed at his boathouse in Guntersville, Alabama. Scott and I talked about contagious communities, which Scott defines as a community that people want to share with other people in their life. We also talked about Scott’s list of paradoxes, why he calls his...

"Reversing obesity, reversing diabetes is possible. You don't just have to manage a chronic condition." - Steve Hastings Steve Hastings, Leader of Health Plans at Virta Health, joined me to share Virta’s strategy to help members reverse type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and obesity. He also shared their findings on just how important food is to our overall health and the power it has as medicine. If you’ve listened to pretty much any episode of Self-Funded with Spencer, you’ve heard my thoughts on...

"If you're not going to be excited when I'm calling you, we're probably not a mutual fit." - Maggie Quinn Maggi Quinn, SVP of Consulting at Intrepid Benefits, joined me to discuss working at an all-female insurance agency, why specialization is so important in today’s market, and some innovative approaches to self-funded healthcare. Maggi shares her journey into insurance, as well as how she found her way to Intrepid, and why the relationship side of the business is the most important to her. ...

"Be kind, be focused on others, be a steward of your craft and take the opportunity to take action.” - Sean Wood Sean Wood, SVP of National Partnerships at ParetoHealth, joined me for a podcast that is far less about captives than it is about being a sales ninja. We talk about getting started in sales, the buyer as a skeptic, collaborative selling, and sales mentorship. Sean was actually a pro basketball player, and he shares how his point guard experience has translated to his career. He shar...

“Whatever your clients find attractive about you and the reason they want to work with you is the exact same reason that a buyer is going to find you attractive and want to acquire your agency.”- Shelby Cowley Shelby Cowley joined me this week to discuss the complicated world of insurance mergers & acquisitions. How do you get the best valuation for your agency? What key metrics are most attractive to buyers? How much does personality impact the value? We answer all of those questions and more...

“Organ transplant is not something that the employer or even the TPAs are necessarily all experts in." - Guy Finley “There are still going to be some situations and some events inside that episode of care that are going to be stop-loss related, so we want the two to work together.” - Robby Kerr Guy Finley and Robby Kerr from HCC joined me in studio for this week’s episode of Self-Funded to discuss covering organ transplants. The costs associated with and frequency of these procedures have grea...

“It's everything. Exposure, knowledge, education, generating new business, solving clients, risk management objectives. It's all here." - John Capasso “And the question comes up year over year, what is the ROI of SIIA? Did we have a legitimate hard dollar return on investment? And the answer is yes, we've always seen a return.” - Amy Gasbarro This week’s episode of Self-Funded was recorded at the SIIA National Conference in September 2024. I spoke on-stage with Amy Gasbarro and John Capasso abo...

"If we're not accessible to you, we can't help you." - David Kinzler David Kinzler, CEO of One-to-One Health, joined me this week to talk about the importance of primary care, restoring the doctor-patient relationship, and TextCare, which provides text messaging access to a dedicated care team with response times under 5 minutes. David is a former Marine, and spent a few years in US politics before joining the healthcare world, and eventually leading One-to-One. His key focus is simplifying he...

"The problem with a lot of healthcare is everybody is coming in, making their own solution. So you have thousands of point solution vendors and all we're doing is confusing the end user and the people that we really want to be educated." - Chelsea Ryckis One of the most influential duos in healthcare, Chelsea and Donovan Ryckis, joined me this week to discuss their company Ethos Benefits, running a benefits agency based on values, and producing the documentary “It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Heal...

"I think I'd say our patients deserve better. Our Americans who are encountering the healthcare system deserve better." - Binu Samuel Binu Samuel, Director of Commercial Partnerships at Carrum Health, joined me for the first podcast of 2025 to discuss how we lower healthcare costs for self-funded employers. Binu, and Carrum’s, mission is to make healthcare easier for the employers, employees, and physicians, which includes focusing on making healthcare cost nothing out of pocket to employees. ...

"Everybody makes an excuse at the end as to why they didn't post or why they didn't start the thing they really wanted to start." - Me Happy New Year! As a bonus episode this week, I’m sharing a talk I gave at a recent ParetoHealth event about getting started with social media content, and how it can be used effectively for sales. Whether you’re new to the industry or you’ve been in it for decades, it’s never too late to start a social media presence, and I share some practical tips on how to...

"They have to understand the value. That’s how you get people to use it." - Megan Glaros “I had somebody who said once, why take a pill when you can get a shot? That's the way we kind of treat health, is like, just treat us with medication.” - Matt Glaros For the final podcast of 2024, Matt and Megan Glaros joined me (in a different studio than usual!) to discuss the unique ways that they both approach benefits. Matt helped grow his family’s agency before co-founding the Meyers Glaros Group,...

"I felt like I was putting $10,000 bandaids on someone's diabetic ketoacidosis instead of actually helping them to never be there in the first place." - Tiffany Ryder Tiffany Ryder, medical physician associate and healthcare advocate, joined me this week to continue the theme of my previous episode: how do we empower patients to make informed decisions, and to advocate for a better system? Tiffany shared with me her journey to this space, which took her from the world of NFL cheerleading to p...

"I think that the general public thinks that health care is just expensive and this is just the way it has to be. It doesn't. And I think if more people knew that they would rise up and fight the system, fight for change.” - Jenni Nolan Jenni Nolan, Board-Certified Patient Advocate at Clear Healthcare Advocacy, joined me this week to discuss the need for more patient advocacy in America, and how she goes about negotiating medical bills with hospitals, on the behalf of patients. The number one...

"Any time you can reward employees for doing the right thing, to me, it's benefiting the employer group, it’s benefitting everybody.” - David Mallen You can provide employees with the best healthcare benefits in the world, but if they don’t know how to navigate the healthcare system, those benefits aren’t very effective. David Mallen, EVP of Partnerships at HealthJoy, joined me this week in studio to discuss care navigation and how we make benefits plans more effective for employees. Having p...

"Looking back now, cancer gave me something to fight for at a time when I felt like maybe life wasn't worth fighting for." - Dylan Slattery Dylan Slattery, VP at ClaimsBridge and motivational speaker at Stage Four 2 On Stage, joined me this week to share his powerful story of beating stage four cancer against all odds, beating it again when it recurred, and how that experience completely changed his perspective on life and healthcare. Dylan was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma completely out of...

“I’m going to say something that people claim isn’t true, but it is. I’m an ear nose and throat doctor. I don't remember your eardrum from last year. I don't care what people tell you, doctors don't remember 3,000 eardrums.” - Danish Nagda Danish Nagda, founder of Rezilient, has come up with a pretty unique solution to doctor burnout in primary care: a hybrid model, where patients go in-person to checkups, an attendant takes all of their vital signs, and the data is uploaded directly to a docto...

"In what other industry could a purveyor put out 99% bad bills and stay in business?" - Linda Komisak “They're diagnosing things for things that you don't even have. And that’s scary.” - Kimberly Carleson Kimberly Carleson, CEO of US Beacon, and Linda Komisak, founder of Upturn Consulting LLC, joined me to talk about two critical ways of increasing healthcare transparency: claims reviews and quality metrics. These two topics are key to understanding why the healthcare system is so broken. If ...

"Quit tolerating mediocrity. Go get in action. Find the right broker consultant that will take you to a new place. Don't give up hope." - Scott Conard Dr. Scott Conard tragically lost 3 patients one summer to unexpected heart problems, and immediately changed how he thought of healthcare. This week on Self-Funded, we talk about “conscious capitalism”, and by extension “conscious healthcare”, what the 7 numbers that everybody needs to know are, and how we need to change the way we approach heal...

"It's progress we couldn't have envisioned decades ago." - Oscar “I felt interested in being part of something bigger than my practice and something that will impact even more people that I was able to in the hospital.” - Carolina Dr. Oscar Bronsther and Dr. Carolina Escobar from Interlink joined me this week to discuss the exciting and scary world of cell and gene therapy, CRISPR, and how we fund these amazing medical advances. In addition to me attempting to act smart enough to be in the sa...

"If my child needs a gene therapy to live, they should get it and anyone's child should. So let's figure out how to pay for it." - Jake Frenz On the final of four podcasts filmed at a recent healthcare thinktank I hosted in Frisco, Texas, Jake Frenz, the founder and CEO of SmithRx, joined me to share his journey from the Marine Corps to Pharmacy Benefit Management, and what makes him so passionate about ending prescription drug price gouging. Jake and I discussed what some of the core challeng...