THE SITUATION: HEALTHCARE COSTS RISING FASTER THAN INFLATION AND WAGES
The Wallstreet Journal provides an excellent summary of the latest KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey (Oct 23, 2025) which underscores a growing concern: the cost of providing family health coverage is rising faster than both inflation and wages. For many employers, this widening gap is creating increasingly difficult trade-offs.
Key cost drivers include both medical and pharmacy spend, especially non-diabetic GLP-1 drugs, genetic therapies, and the growing prevalence of chronic health conditions across multigenerational workforces.
For example, one Optimatum client, for instance, saw an eightfold increase in non-diabetic GLP-1 drug costs over the past year, while another plan added a rare-disease therapy exceeding $30,000 per monthly prescription.
These rising costs don’t just impact benefits budgets, they ripple through organizations, constraining wage growth, straining talent retention, and challenging competitiveness.
THE SOLUTION: COST MITIGATION THROUGH PROACTIVE EMPLOYER SPONSORED HEALTH PLAN MANAGEMENT
Opportunities to manage costs effectively do exist. At Optimatum, we’ve helped clients uncover opportunities by starting with the “low-hanging fruit”: examine vendor relationships to identify inefficiencies, tighten service-level agreements (SLAs), establish performance guarantees, and ensure vendor alignment with corporate goals.
Proactive plan and program vendor management can deliver meaningful cost mitigation without shifting costs onto employees.
As employers prepare for potential near double-digit rate increases in 2026, now is the time to take a closer look at your employer sponsored health plan.
HOW OPTIMATUM CAN HELP:
Optimatum’s white paper titled: A Path Not Taken: Vendor Management in Employer Sponsored Healthcare, highlights hidden opportunities to mitigate the ever-rising healthcare cost trend.
“Employers are facing rising costs and increasing complexity in managing healthcare and benefits programs,” said David Neikrug, CEO of Optimatum. “Our analysis underscores the critical need to optimize vendor relationships as a key driver of HR operational efficiency and employee satisfaction.”
KEY HIGHLIGHTS:
- Employer Challenges:
Rising healthcare costs, talent shortages, and complex workforce health needs top employer concerns. While many deploy diverse strategies, vendor management remains an untapped source of cost mitigation and operational efficiency gains.
- Current Strategies:
Employers are investing in digital health, mental health programs, and other targeted cost-control measures. However, these efforts are often fragmented. Vendor integration and harmonization can significantly boost their impact.
- Optimatum’s Case for Vendor Management:
Optimatum positions vendor accountability as a strategic BPO solution that drives cost containment, compliance, and stronger employee outcomes through harmonization, performance metrics, and data-driven oversight.
Optimatum’s solutions combine immediate cost-mitigation opportunities with long-term strategies to curb rising employer-sponsored benefit trends. Through process improvement, vendor harmonization, and data-driven decision-making, Optimatum helps organizations achieve sustainable expense control while enhancing compliance, operational efficiency, and workforce productivity.
ABOUT OPTIMATUM:
Optimatum is a vendor management firm that focuses exclusively on the HR supply chain with turnkey solutions that improve the financial, operating performance, transparency and accountability of HR Benefit programs while still maintaining existing vendor relationships.
Our support of the HR workstream during the M&A lifecycle encompasses operational due diligence, day-one readiness and post day-one synergies. We assist sponsors in leveraging the aggregate purchasing power of their portfolio to capture value and drive margin expansion.