Employee Health Care Conference

08:00 AM - 08:30 AM ET

Welcome and Opening Remarks

Join us as we open the 2026 Health Care Conference with a bold call to action. Ignite Change. This energizing welcome session will set the tone for two days of breakthrough thinking, candid dialogue, and actionable insights. As the health care landscape continues to evolve – shaped by innovation, affordability pressures, and shifting workforce expectations – employers are uniquely positioned to lead transformation.

08:30 AM - 09:30 AM ET

Balancing the Spend: Reclaiming Value in Employee Benefits

In today’s cost-contained environment, employers are under increasing pressure to do more with less – without compromising the impact of their benefits strategy. This session explores how organizations are reallocating benefit spend (shifting from expansion to strategic rebalancing) and enhancing impact through smarter vendor partnerships, analytics, and employee experience design.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

Measuring what Matters: Determining the Value of your Benefits Portfolio

Employers must ensure every dollar spent delivers measurable value. But what does “value” really mean in today’s environment – and how can you capture it? We’ll share realworld examples and tools to help you evaluate your current portfolio, identify gaps and make confident, evidence-based decisions about where to invest next.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

Reallocating for Impact: Unlocking Value through Virtual Care, Advanced Primary Care and Plan Design

Employers are shifting away from expansion to optimization – reallocating benefit spend to drive greater value. This session explores how advanced primary care and modernized plan design can work together to improve outcomes, reduce waste, and enhance employee experience.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

The Benefits Experience Revolution: Designing Programs Through an Employee-Centric Lens

As employee expectations rise and budgets tighten, flexible benefits offer a scalable, future-ready solution. This session will show you how to overcome common design and implementation challenges to create benefits strategies that truly resonate. You’ll see how flexibility boosts perceived value—making your existing budget work harder by giving employees more choice. Through real-world examples and peer discussion, you’ll leave with a practical framework to rethink, redesign, and reinvest in your benefits experience.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

Kids Are in Crisis: Are Your Benefits Ready?

Between Zoom calls and school drop-offs, working parents are facing an unprecedented surge in youth mental health challenges. Rising rates of complex issues like eating disorders, suicidality, ADHD, and autism have pushed many families to a breaking point—and most benefit programs weren’t designed for this level of need. In this fireside chat, a leading global employer and a top psychologist will share how forward-thinking companies are building benefits that support families across every age and stage—from early intervention to crisis care. You’ll discover how connected, proactive support not only improves outcomes for kids but also reduces long-term costs and helps parents stay engaged and resilient at work. Key Takeaways: • How to close critical gaps in care with early intervention and crisis support • Approaches to addressing high-acuity needs such as suicidality, eating disorders, and neurodivergence • Shifting from reactive benefits to a proactive, whole-family care model • Designing mental health support that resonates with next generation workers

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

From Episodic to Enduring: Reinventing Women’s Health with AI and Empathy

Women’s health is a lifelong journey, yet most benefits treat it as a series of isolated events—overlooking early risk signals and long-term outcomes. AI can surface risks sooner, but can it capture the lived experience of a hot flash, miscarriage, or IVF anxiety? This session explores a new model: integrated, predictive care that combines data-driven intelligence with human empathy. You’ll learn how employers are moving beyond fragmented point solutions to deliver connected programs that span menstruation through menopause, address comorbidities, close care gaps, and reduce high-cost events. The future of women’s health is both intelligent—and deeply human.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

A Major Shift in Health Care Delivery

Health care is at a turning point. Digital and in-person care can no longer operate in silos—and AI is already embedded in most care journeys. In this session, benefits leaders will share how integrating digital and in-person care is simplifying MSK journeys, improving outcomes, and delivering higher-value, lower-cost care. You’ll also learn how AI enables smarter triage, easier navigation, and frees care teams to focus on what matters most—providing skilled, compassionate support.

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

Embedded Advocacy: Driving Engagement, Quality, and Cost Outcomes

In this three-year case study, discover how JetBlue successfully reintegrated advocacy services with its medical carrier. Learn about the journey and strategy that delivered: • Higher employee engagement • Greater satisfaction • Better outcomes in both quality and cost

09:50 AM - 10:30 AM ET

The New PBM Fiduciary: What Transparency Really Requires in 2026

Selecting a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) isn’t just a business decision—it’s a fiduciary responsibility. Yet hidden fees, misaligned incentives, and opaque pricing still trap many employers in costly, noncompliant arrangements. In this session, hear how one employer exposed these pitfalls, restructured their PBM strategy, and put employee care and cost savings first. Walk away with a practical roadmap to cut waste, improve transparency, and meet your fiduciary obligations with confidence in today’s complex pharmacy benefits landscape.

10:30 AM - 11:00 AM ET

Refreshment Break

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

Creating more Value in Retirement Plans through Pooled Employer Plans (PEPs)

We will hear from clients about their experiences transitioning retirement plans governance and administration to a PEP. They’ll share lessons learned and most importantly, the keys to maximizing the value of retirement programs through this model – from freeing up strategic bandwidth, to enhancing participant outcomes, to unlocking efficiencies that allow more investment in the benefits employees value most.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

Rewriting the Script: Pharmacy Pricing Models and Rx Care Delivery

As pharmacy costs surge and transparency expectations rise, employers are rethinking how they contract for pharmacy benefits. This session explores the evolving landscape of PBM pricing models – from traditional spread and rebate structures to cost-plus and pass-through arrangements – and how employers are using these strategies to manage risk and improve outcomes.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

The ROI You Can’t Ignore: Transforming Cardio Risk into Cost Control

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains one of the biggest drivers of employer health care costs—with overall costs projected to rise up to 10% through 2026. To spark meaningful change, benefits leaders must take a proactive approach to heart health with scalable, clinically proven strategies. This session will explore how a digital-first approach can reduce cardiovascular risk, drive lasting behavior change, and deliver measurable savings—helping employers protect both their people and their budgets.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

From Complexity to Clarity: Empowering Workforce Health Through Intelligent Navigation

Learn how a large employer is transforming how they tackle health care complexity. In this candid conversation, leaders will share how early, proactive engagement—fueled by data, trust and human connection—is driving better outcomes and meaningful savings. Learn how the employer is supporting its workforce through personalized care navigation and using technology and a clinical model to help ensure employees get the right care at the right time—while reducing administrative burden for HR.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

When Benefits Become Strategy: How Microsoft Built the Future of Employee Care

With health care costs projected to rise 9% and employee expectations rapidly evolving, Microsoft took a bold approach—transforming benefits from a program into a core business strategy. By creating a unified, holistic model of care, Microsoft addressed the full reproductive health journey while meeting the needs of a diverse, multigenerational, and global workforce. In this session, you’ll learn how Microsoft’s benefits leaders reimagined women’s and family health to: • Boost engagement and improve outcomes for employees and their families • Reduce costs through measurable results, including fewer preterm births and lower NICU expenses • Build benefits that serve as a cultural differentiator in the competition for talent Discover how strategic investment in comprehensive care can both strengthen workforce wellbeing and keep rising healthcare costs in check.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

Digital Member Onboarding

Plan sponsors struggle with how to maximize member engagement with their health plan. During this session, you’ll learn about a program that helps plan sponsors digitally onboard employees with omni-channel, personalized communications at the member-level. The program has been shown to increase engagement in both initial enrollment and ongoing connections with their plan.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

GLP-1s Broke My Budget – How We Recovered

As GLP-1 prescriptions surged, employers were forced to confront skyrocketing costs and questions about long-term sustainability. In this session, senior benefits leaders will share how they navigated the GLP-1 cost crisis—what missteps they made, the lessons they learned, and the strategies that ultimately helped them rebalance cost and care. From implementing responsible prescribing practices to expanding effective, drug-free alternatives, discover what’s working to manage spend without compromising outcomes.

11:00 AM - 11:40 AM ET

From Nice-to-Have to Business Critical: The Rise of Personalized Spending Accounts

“Personalized” is no longer a buzzword—it’s a business imperative. Employees want flexibility and choice, while CFOs demand cost-effectiveness and ROI. Customizable spending accounts bridge that gap, turning Lifestyle Spending Accounts, Rewards & Recognition, education assistance, and workspace reimbursements into core pillars of modern total rewards. In this session, benefits leaders will share how they’ve designed personalized programs, the outcomes they’ve seen, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way. Walk away with realworld strategies and data-driven insights to scale personalized benefits across your organization.

11:40 AM - 12:40 PM ET

Luncheon

12:40 PM - 01:40 PM ET

De-risking your Plan: Strategies for a More Resilient Benefits Portfolio

As rising costs and regulatory pressures mount, organizations are rethinking how to protect their benefits investment while maintaining value for their workforce. Explore how employers are reducing financial and operational risk in their benefits strategy through smarter plan design, vendor oversight and governance.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

Shifting the Risk: Strategic Levers with ICHRA, Captives and Beyond

As cost volatility becomes the norm, employers are rethinking how they finance and manage benefit risk. This session explores how organizations are using Individual Coverage HRAs (ICHRA), medical stop-loss captives and other innovative structures to shift risk off the plan – without sacrificing employee value.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

Managing Pharmacy Risk: GLP-1s, Gene Therapies and the Future of High-Cost Care

Pharmacy costs are now the fastest-growing component of employer health spend – driven by the explosive demand for GLP-1s and the emergence of million-dollar gene and cell therapies. This session explores how employers are navigating this new frontier of pharmacy risk with smarter plan design, vendor strategies, and financial protections.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

The Employee Health Iceberg: When Financial Stress Hides Below the Surface

Financial stress is often invisible—yet it drives burnout, absenteeism, and turnover. In this session, leading employers share how they uncovered the hidden costs of financial strain and built strategies to address it head-on. You’ll learn: • How to spot early warning signs of financial fragility • Ways to engage employees who don’t self-identify as “stressed” • Scalable approaches to reduce presenteeism and disengagement

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

The Burnout Crisis: From Hidden Cost to Strategic Advantage

Burnout has moved beyond buzzword status—it’s now a business-critical risk. With 65% of employees reporting higher stress than five years ago, the impact on retention, productivity, and culture is too costly to ignore. But what if burnout could be reframed—not as a liability, but as a catalyst for resilience and renewal? In this candid session, hear how a leading employer is turning burnout into a lever for stronger performance and more human-centered workplaces. Key Takeaways: • The hidden costs of burnout on talent, culture, and business outcomes • Practical tools for managers to identify, prevent, and address burnout across teams • A proven framework for embedding personalized mental health support that drives engagement, retention, and measurable ROI Whether you’re reimagining benefits or reigniting purpose in your workforce, you’ll leave with strategies to turn burnout from a challenge into a strategic advantage.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

Precision Navigation, Proven ROI: AI’s Impact on a Global Benefits Experience

AI has become foundational to modern benefits strategy. This session details how a global, multi-industry enterprise implemented an AI-powered benefits agent to improve employee experience while easing HR workload, resolving thousands of health-related inquiries in the first 60 days, returning 20,000+ hours to HR and employees, and delivering $1M+ in annualized productivity savings. You’ll learn how to: • Simplify access to benefits • Steer employees to high-value care pathways in moments • Quantify outcomes and ROI using finance-ready evidence Walk away with a practical playbook to deploy AI navigation alongside your existing stack—safely, quickly, and with measurable results.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

Supporting Your Workforce Through Death in Service

A death in service can send shockwaves through an organization, affecting productivity, morale, and wellbeing. This session explores the practical and emotional impact of employee loss, how leading employers manage crisis response, and the strategies that ensure compassionate, effective support for both teams and families. Learn how to build a resilient culture and safeguard your business when the unthinkable happens.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

From Cafeteria to Clinical: How Food as Medicine Is Redefining Workplace Well-being

As chronic disease costs soar, employers are turning to foodas- medicine strategies that deliver measurable ROI. This session explores how nutrition-first programs improve productivity, reduce attrition, and advance health equity through access to produce prescriptions, tailored meals, and daily behavior-change supports. Learn how forward-thinking employers are transforming the cafeteria into a clinical tool for workforce health.

02:00 PM - 02:40 PM ET

Policy as Catalyst: H.R. 1 and the Rise of Advanced Primary Care Strategies

With H.R. 1 reshaping health care incentives, employers have a unique opportunity to align benefit design with policy shifts while expanding access to comprehensive care. Beyond Virtual-First Health Plans (VFHPs), strategies like first-dollar coverage and $0 copays for virtual primary care and digital health are gaining traction. This session provides practical guidance on plan design, member engagement, and regulatory compliance—positioning orchestrated virtual care as a powerful lever for cost control, access, and better health outcomes. What Benefit Leaders Will Learn: • How to align benefit strategies with H.R. 1 policy changes • The impact of $0 copays and first-dollar coverage on access and affordability • Ways to integrate virtual primary care and digital health into plan design • Practical steps for engagement and compliance that improve outcomes

02:40 PM - 03:10 PM ET

Refreshment Break

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

Guarding the Plan: De-risking through Governance and Fiduciary Excellence

Scrutiny is rising on ERISA fiduciary standards for employer health benefit plans. Employers face mounting pressure to demonstrate fiduciary responsibility and embed governance into their benefits strategy. This session explores how organizations can proactively de-risk their health and welfare plans by establishing robust fiduciary governance frameworks.

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

Seeing Clearly: Managing Benefit Risk through Price Transparency

As fiduciary scrutiny intensifies and cost pressures mount, employers are turning to price transparency as a strategic lever to manage benefit risk. This session explores how greater visibility into provider pricing and plan performance can help employers identify inefficiencies, reduce overpayment exposure, and strengthen governance.

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

Who’s Watching Your Health Care Dollars? Tracking Every Claim from Bank to Bedside

For self-funded employers, every claim dollar is your responsibility — yet most lack visibility into how those dollars move from the company’s account to the provider’s hands. In this session, a large employer will share how they’ve built a process to track claims and payments end-to-end: auditing before checks go out, monitoring spend along the way, catching errors, and uncovering what happens in between. This isn’t just about accuracy—it’s about accountability. Attendees will learn practical strategies to: • Use data to monitor administrator performance • Flag and eliminate unnecessary costs • Ensure plans are paying the right amount for the right care

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

From One-Size-Fits-None to Personalized Support: Building a Scalable Mental Health System

Too often, employees struggle in silence because mental health support arrives late—or not at all. Traditional EAPs weren’t designed for today’s diverse, multigenerational workforce. Instead of forcing employees into outdated models, what if we built something people actually use? Join leaders from Medtronic and Qualtrics for a forward-looking conversation on the future of workplace mental health. Explore how leading organizations are moving beyond static EAPs to stratified care models, supported by AI, that guide employees to the right level of support—from everyday well-being practices to specialized clinical care. You’ll walk away with strategies to: • Strengthen workforce well-being and resilience • Boost engagement while lowering benefit waste • Deliver scalable, personalized mental health support that grows with your organization

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

From Cost Driver to Opportunity: Rethinking Chronic Conditions

Chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and autoimmune disorders remain some of the largest cost drivers in employer-sponsored health plans—and traditional approaches often fall short. In this session, learn how leading employers are shifting upstream with smarter clinical navigation, earlier interventions, and personalized care models. Discover strategies that not only improve outcomes but also reduce long-term spend, boost engagement, and transform fragmented, reactive care into a seamless, satisfying member experience.

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

The Human-Centered Algorithm: How a Visionary Employer Is Blending AI and EQ to Transform Employee Health Care

AI is reshaping corporate benefits with promises of efficiency and cost savings, but if not applied thoughtfully, it can reduce health care to a transactional, impersonal experience. This session spotlights how a Fortune 100 employer is using advanced technology balanced with emotional intelligence (EQ) to serve more than 420,000 members. Learn how this employer is tackling the complexities of rising costs while keeping employee well-being and engagement at the forefront. You will gain practical insights into what has worked, what hasn’t, and how combining AI with EQ is creating a more empathetic, effective, and human-centered health care experience.

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

Rooted in Results: How Treating Obesity Changes Everything

The conversation around obesity care has been dominated by the rising cost of GLP-1s. But there’s more to the story. By addressing obesity—the root cause of costly cardiometabolic conditions—employers can improve health outcomes and reduce long-term costs more effectively than with traditional programs. This session will share how a Fortune 100 company saved millions through an obesity-centered approach that drove weight loss, improved cardiometabolic health, and reduced future disease risk. You’ll walk away with a playbook for implementing a proven obesity care strategy—and a reframed view of condition management and prevention.

03:10 PM - 03:50 PM ET

Building Recovery-Friendly Workplaces in the Face of a Quiet Crisis

Substance use often goes unseen at work—but its impact on health costs, safety, and productivity is undeniable. Forward-looking employers are moving from reactive policies to proactive, recovery-friendly cultures that give employees a clear path to help and hope. In this session, hear from leaders who are tackling stigma, aligning leadership, launching peer-led initiatives, and reshaping workplace policies. Whether you’re beginning the journey or refining your approach, you’ll walk away with practical strategies and lessons learned from the field.

04:05 PM - 05:15 PM ET

Washington Update

From Capitol Hill to the courts, the policy landscape for employer-sponsored benefits is shifting rapidly. This session will unpack the latest legislative, regulatory, and judicial developments affecting health care and compliance.

05:15 PM - 06:15 PM ET

Cocktail Reception