Episodes

"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...

"I would say a lot of it is education, helping both the member and the provider realize that it's okay for them to get healthcare in home." - Dan Cochran On the third of four podcasts filmed at a recent healthcare thinktank I hosted in Frisco, Texas, Dan Cochran, CEO of Cochran Health Ventures, joined me to discuss infusions, in-home healthcare, why the future of healthcare will be personalized, and how we educate consumers. I, and many others in this industry, consistently advocate that much ...

"There can be a better path forward. We don't have to remain adherent to the system that is built against us. It's just going to take some rolling up of the sleeves and a commitment to it." - Shawn Sanford This week, another ParetoHealth colleague joins the show: Shawn Sanford, RVP of Sales and Pod Leader. Shawn and I discussed his transition from pro baseball to ancillary benefit sales to Pareto, and what he learned from each step along the way. We also discuss some of the biggest problems i...

“There's a reason why every insurance carrier likely owns or is owned by a pharmacy benefit management company, that’s one of the ways that they can drive revenue." - Kristen Rivers My guest this week, Kristen Rivers from ParetoHealth, is one of the strongest healthcare advocates I know. This week on Self-Funded, Kristen and I discuss her upbringing, how that affects the work she does today, what caused her to leave a position at the biggest insurance company in the world, and why she believes...

Luke Aslesen, founder of INFRMD, joined me a few weeks ago for the podcast, and we also filmed this extended interview after, in which Luke asks me about my comedy background, upbringing, relationship with my wife, and more. If you’re a long-time listener of the podcast and want to get to know me a bit better, or you just stumbled onto the podcast and want to know who I am, this is a great place to start! Chapters: 00:00:00 Luke/Spencer Q+A 00:00:35 When/how did you think of bringing your en...

“PBM is one of the most complicated concepts out there and it's incredibly difficult to understand. But it's not because the system itself is complicated. It's because pbms make it complicated.” - Justin Jasniewski Justin Jasniewski, CEO of Serve You Rx, joined me this week to discuss the state of the pharmacy benefit management (PBM) market in 2024. We discussed the competitive landscape in the PBM industry, why that’s (slowly) leading to more actual transparency, and how Serve You Rx fits in...

“You know, Africa has no peanut allergies.” - Dr. Marty Makary I was honored to be joined this week by Dr. Marty Makary to promote his new book “Blind Spots”, which published this week and is currently a national bestseller. To purchase “Blind Spots”, use this link: https://geni.us/blindspots Dr. Marty Makary is a surgeon, researcher, and author, as well as an advocate for better approaches to public health. He’s known for challenging medical dogma and asking the questions nobody else will. I...

“So many times these employers are like, ‘dude, I spend so much money on this, and my employees don't care at all.’ Or what's even worse is they go, ‘our employees love it, we have a great, great plan.’ Did they tell you that?” - Luke Aslesen This is one of my favorite podcasts of the year: Luke Aslesen, Founder of INFRMD, joined me to talk about entrepreneurship, creativity in insurance, comedy, and how to stay authentic. INFRMD is an insurance education platform, designed to make it as easy ...

“If we're facing a [mental health] crisis and we want radical change, we’ve got to think about radical solutions. If those radical solutions can show objectively with safety and efficacy data, that they're really helping people and really changing lives, then I think we ought to at least explore and get curious about offering those solutions to to people.” - Amil Patel We have a mental health crisis in America, and we need new solutions to help those who are struggling. Amil Patel, from Meeko ...

“Utilization is key for virtual urgent care. Let us be your first line of defense, rather than like, ‘oh, I do have a telemedicine on the back of my insurance card, I’m not sure what it does.’” - Jon O’Toole Especially in the last few years (for obvious reasons), telehealth and virtual care have proved that they’re here to stay. But how do we best determine when a patient should use virtual or in-person care, and how do we actually get them to utilize it? Jon O’Toole, from Recuro Health, joine...

“Life is short. In the meantime, your health is, at the end of the day, your health is all you have." - Heather Bowers Differentiating yourself through customer service is a tricky thing: it’s talked about so frequently that it can almost feel outdated focusing so much on the customer experience. But, as my guest Heather Bowers from Lone Star Benefits shared with me this week, it’s still the best way to truly serve your clients in 2024. Heather joined me from literally across the street, and ...