The Stretch – Changing the Way Point Solutions are Accessed & Paid For

The Stretch – Changing the Way Point Solutions are Accessed & Paid For
November 3, 2025 30 mins

The Stretch – Changing the Way Point Solutions are Accessed & Paid For

Season 2 Episode 9: Aon host, Kevin Fyock, speaks with Ed Leibowitz, Chief Strategy Officer at Solera Health, about how the explosion of point solutions, rising healthcare costs, and data fragmentation are reshaping digital health.

Key Takeaways
  1. How to cut through point solution “fatigue” caused by too many vendors, confusing experiences, and disconnected data?
  2. What shared metrics and standardized outcomes are needed to fairly compare vendors and prove real ROI?
  3. How can integrated digital health networks connect people to the right care faster and at lower cost?

Kevin Fyock:
Hello and welcome to season two of The Stretch, a podcast brought to you by Aon that explores the latest breakthroughs and emerging ideas in workplace health and benefits. My name is Kevin Fyock and I lead Aon's Health Solutions Innovation Practice. In this cutting-edge podcast series, we'll discuss revolutionary approaches to employee well-being, we'll interview thought leaders and spotlight organizations that are setting new standards in employee benefits and health. As we record today's episode of The Stretch, many employers are making decisions for their 2026 benefit plan years. Cost containment and employee engagement are top of mind, and organizations are asking if they're getting real value from the solutions that they're paying for, and they're still trying to figure out if they offer a program, how they can actually get the right employees to engage with those programs ongoing.

  • Read Transcript

    Kevin Fyock:
    Terms like point solution fatigue have been thrown around a lot in the past couple of years, and this is because the number of solutions in the market has grown to the thousands. So it only makes sense that we title today's episode Changing the Way Point Solutions are Accessed and Paid For. Here to unpack what's going on in the market and to help potentially chart a better path forward is Ed Leibowitz, Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Solera Health. Welcome, Ed. I'm super excited to have you here.

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Thanks, Kevin. I'm really happy to be here as well. Looking forward to today.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Yeah, me too. So Ed, why don't you introduce yourself? I'd love to hear more about you, your position, your background, how you got here.

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Sure. I have a pretty long and winding road to get to where I got at Solera. Started my career, much like many kids who grew up in the tri-state area, in financial services, but always had a desire to scratch that social itch, right? Do well while doing good. During my time at Standard and Poors and Brown Brothers Harriman, I actually developed juvenile diabetes when I was 26 or 27 years old, and that really opened up my eyes to how challenging the US health care system is. I walked around with a PalmPilot, the Calorie King database, and I figured out what the glycemic index was of every food that I ate, and this was well before the iPhone came out. So then as I went to grad school, I still thought financial services was where I wanted to go. I had a fancy internship at a big global money manager, and by the end of the summer realized that finance just wasn't ever going to satisfy me personally and professionally.

    So I entered into a job search, created a corporate wellness plan for a product, used that to network into VCs and wound up at Keas out in San Francisco in 2010. That was Adam Bosworth's and George Kasabdi's corporate wellness startup. It was when Redbrick started, Virgin Pulse started. If you think about the evolution of the digital health industry, you had meaningful use too, which led to data standardization. Then you had the Affordable Care Act helping people monetize disease management programs, and that's when corporate wellness really took hold. So I got to see why wellness challenges don't lead to ROI, and from there wound up at Everyday Health and I learned how different brands cater to different clinical personas. I actually ran Jilliammifles.com, Southbeachdiet.com, launched the Mayo Clinic Diet, and after having some fun on the consumer side for a few years, joined Mikki Kapoor, Sam Holliday and Sachin Agarwal to build out our payer provider business unit. And we acquired Tea Leaves Health, so we learned how digital data could be applied to personalized navigation for healthcare systems.

    We launched a product with What to Expect When You're Expecting to connect women to maternity benefits that their local hospitals were offering or their health insurance plan were offering. Then I went over to Bechton Dickinson and found out how hard it is to launch a digital diabetes platform in five countries over two and a half years with four different healthcare economic models. Then returned to the startup world. And when I wound up at Solera, what was really fascinating about them is they were identifying a way to take non-traditional data sets from diabetes prevention programs and convert that into CPT codes to bill on benefit. That has really led to this ecosystem and data play that we have, that I think is unlocking a lot of the value that's in the system that has been prevented for a bunch of barriers I'm sure we're going to get into.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Yeah. Well, Ed, first of all, I've known you for a few years and I had no idea how deep your background was. You've literally been here since the beginning of the creation of some of these point solutions. So I was excited for today's chat, but I'm even that much more excited now. So thanks for sharing your background with our listeners. So maybe with that, you can help us put together a little more context before we dive in. So from your perspective, what's going on in the marketplace as we think about point solutions and we think about, as I opened up this notion of the proliferation that we've seen?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Going back to a little bit of what I said in the Affordable Care Act and the ability to monetize disease management and preventative services, that opened up a whole new industry. And employers at the time were getting really frustrated that their health plan disease management programs were essentially a nurse calling a person with diabetes and saying, "Check your blood sugar more frequently." That opened the door for Omada, for Virta, for Lavongo to come up and say, "No, we're going to create a premium consumer experience. We're going to charge the employer directly. We're going to carve out those dollars from the health plan and we're going to create a better mousetrap to support people with chronic conditions." You move forward, COVID happens, explosion of telemedicine. You saw every neighbor that you have, that I have, that every CEO of a large company has started their own mental health point solution or their own MSK point solution, right?

    There's been some winners declared now, but it was the Wild West and you saw an explosion of people leveraging telemedicine to be able to gain access to support their chronic conditions or even acute conditions. And then what happened was there were so many of them, you started to get navigation platforms like a Transcarent, like an Accolade, like a Quantum. People were like, "I don't understand this choice." So what started from a new way to monetize healthcare and support chronic conditions led into an overabundance of choice both for the consumer, the employer, and the health insurer.

    And then you had people saying, "Well, now all the data isn't connected. I was used to brick and mortar referral patterns." The health plans were used to getting claims data to say, "Okay, this is the next logical step in the linear care pathway. This is how next best action is recommended." But none of that happened in the digital health ecosystem because an infrastructure layer was created. So by starting with a premium consumer experience, care was delivered really, really well. But it was care that was outside of the infrastructure that had been built over the past 30, 40, 50 years and wasn't taking advantage of all the technology innovation that had happened with EMRs and other meaningful use standards.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Sure. So it's interesting that we recently did an episode with Rock Health and one of the interesting things that our guest shared was how the first generation of point solutions really wasn't built with the end user in mind. Based on what you just said, I'm going to venture a guest to say you'd agree. But maybe I'll ask you the question. Do you agree with that?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    I do. I would say it was built with a patient in mind. If you think about going to conferences back in 2009, 2010, everybody's like, "Oh, it has to be patient centered care," which makes sense. And at the time that was just better logging or maybe more needed access to a nurse. Unfortunately, the end user in mind is really how you deliver longitudinal care. And I would say that's the part that was missing. The end user is really the systems that are leveraging that data to deliver holistic care. And it became way too much about thinking just about the condition and not everything that individual needs for health.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense. So then maybe if we segue to maybe the million-dollar question. So then what should we be doing as an industry, as employers? What should we be watching?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Yeah, it's a great question. I think one of the big challenges that every employer has is, are my digital investments returning ROI and are they reducing my cost curve or are they reducing my trend? Clearly, the answer to that today is no. We've seen healthcare costs increase 50% over the last several years. Expected increases next year of another 8% after 7% this year. It's just an unsustainable monetary model. So the questions that folks need to start asking is, how are the vendors that I'm working with delivering value? How are they transparently telling me that value is delivered? And are they engaging the right people of my population?

    Now, what makes that challenging is that each of the great vendors out there has a different way to define that, and no one has been able to say, "This is the consistent methodology. This is the consistent denominator. These are the consistent numerators." So you're basically comparing apples to oranges, which makes it really hard, especially when benefit managers are overwhelmed with supporting an entire population now, and now with the tight economy. There's a lot on their plates. So how do you figure out what is working, what is not, and then hold the ecosystem for delivering better care?

    Kevin Fyock:
    Yeah. And I'm going to double click on something you just said, which is around this idea of accountability. And maybe we can touch on that in a little bit because I think that has been, at least from an employer perspective, one of the gripes that I think a lot of health plans have, that plan sponsors have is like, how do you hold the person, the group, the tech that is endeavoring to improve the health of a member accountable, and so that they're actually doing the right thing? And I think throughout my whole career, Ed, that's been focused on fits and starts in different forms of value-based care. So maybe a separate thread that we can pull on in just a little bit. So why don't you tell us a little bit about Solera Health? So you're setting this framework of maybe historically how we'd gotten to where we are today. What are you all doing to try to solve some of the issues that you're bringing up?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Yeah, great questions. So I joined the company in late 2020, and at the time we had a diabetes prevention and a weight management solution. What the company leveraged was the Affordable Care Act saying that DPP programs or diabetes prevention programs needed to fit these milestones to get paid for by health insurers. And the company created some technology to take data from local community-based organizations, translate into those milestones, and then bill United Healthcare for those services. When I joined, I was like, "That's really interesting." The ability to take this non-traditional data, standardize it, translate it, and make it useful? Wow, that's something. So then again, COVID was starting. 2020, we launched a mental health and an MSK solution. And what we identified at the time was, all the solutions out there are great, but no one solution, just like no one doctor can treat an entire clinical persona that exists, right?

    So if you think about mental health, there's folks who are stressed out, they need a lower intensity intervention. There's folks who have significant symptoms of depression. They need a higher intensity intervention. So we created what we like to call an acuity model and developed a navigation service where through some self-identified insights, we could match somebody to the program that was good to deliver maximum outcomes at minimal cost. We've since replicated that model across nine different condition categories. And in each of those condition categories, we've looked at the evidence to say, "What are the milestones or what are the things somebody should be doing to demonstrate progression to a clinical outcome and then ultimately have a quantified clinical outcome?" So for weight management, we need to get validated weight that they have lost 5% of their starting weight over a specified period of time. For mental health, it's reduction in PHQ-9. For MSK, it's reduction in pain score, return to functional mobility.

    So we're doing that across all nine condition categories. And what that has allowed us to do is rather than focus on a PMPM or a per-engage, per-enrolled per-month model, we are only billing for aggregation of events that will lead to a clinical outcome or a clinical outcome itself. So we've applied a fee-for-service model with a value-based outcomes to really create a new billing model for the industry, and that has required us to standardize data across the 30 plus digital health solutions we work with that allows us to do something and provide that transparency and accountability for the customers that we serve.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Wow. There's that term accountability again, which I love. So maybe just to reiterate what you said, I love how you characterize aggregate billing focused on clinical outcomes and even marrying together fee for service and value-based care together. And I think that to me seems really key, Ed, because I feel like the industry has drawn a line in the sand that it's one or the other. It's either fee for service or value-based care. But I think if I'm hearing you correctly, you're saying the two of them can operate somewhat harmoniously. Is that fair?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    That's right. If you leverage fee for service or episodic billing and based on actual attainment or doing things, then you're billing for things that matter, not just a doctor's visit, right? So you're leveraging all the same mechanisms, but the way that you drive that mechanism is value-based.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Yeah, I think that's fantastic. I love how you've characterized that. So you talked about the nine different categories, and at the risk of leading the witness, what are you working on next? So is there an expansion in categories? Is there a functional expansion for how you're engaging members? Tell me a little bit more about where you're headed.

    Ed Leibowitz:
    I think Chrissy Farr actually did a really good job of capturing where the industry is in her recent paper that she released on LinkedIn yesterday or the day before. Where we see the industry going is disease management is overly saturated. How many diabetes management vendors are there out there? But what we are seeing, especially with the demand to reduce trend in year, is a move to virtual clinics. Oshi is doing great work in GI. Pomelo Care in thyroid disorders. Pelago in substance use disorders. So how do you remove the barriers to access for specialists and reduce the cost of assessment and diagnostic visits by transferring that visit from high cost brick and mortar to low cost virtual?

    And that is where we're seeing the opportunity to drive in your cost savings. So spaces that we're exploring are men's health, maternal care, we had digestive health, oncology, pulmonary. Some of those high cost specialty conditions, like me, I'm looking for a new endo and it's taking me six months to go see one. That's not right. So virtual and the ability to have demand meet supply is really where we can accelerate the curve, reduce time lost at work for waiting for appointments or not feeling great for months and months at a time before you get into that specialist, and drive in immediate value by avoiding unnecessary procedures such as imaging or other diagnostic tests that might not be needed if the doctor at time of appointment just listened to the real symptoms of the patient.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Wow, that's really interesting. And I think we've talked about a handful of topics. So we talked about fee for service and value-based care operating in a somewhat harmoniously way. We talked about how you're engaging in a materially different way. I opened up today's podcast with talking about point solution proliferation and how I think a lot of employers are a bit exhausted from all this new exciting stuff coming out in the market. And while so many of these organizations are doing amazing things, there is a level of exhaustion. So if you were to distill down what you're doing in just two or three sentences, can you help us with that? Because I would love to leave our listeners with everything that you've talked about today in a succinct way. What is the nut that you have endeavored to really crack?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    I think what Solera is offering to the market is a digital health network that can be paid on benefit that offers unlimited access to specialty wellness and preventative care, and connects all of those solutions in a way that's going to manage that person holistically.

    Kevin Fyock:
    That's great. That's great. Easy to understand. Very clear. I think you're all doing some really fantastic stuff. So Ed, maybe one last question for you. And I ask all my guests the same question. It's my crystal ball question. So 10 years out, if we could align all future digital health solutions on a concept that really is, as you said, paying for value, what does the market look like? Is there less solutions, more consumer centric solutions? If you were to place your bets, where would you place them?

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Yeah. I would say you're going to see the line between virtual and brick and mortar be removed. Much like telebanking and regular banking, we all bank through our phones now. I think what you're going to see is more personalized experiences in care where the data we have about what we do, how we do it, what we need and why we need it is going to be leveraged so that Kevin goes into his phone and his phone is telling him, "Hey, these are the things that you could do for better health," in a way that's safe and secure, but connects the dots for you. Basically let AI, let LLM remove the barriers of healthcare literacy so that we all have a doctor in our pocket, and then doctors can operate at the top of their license and consumers are directed to the right place at the right time, and then we all are living healthier together.

    Kevin Fyock:
    Well, I love the connection too of all things banking. And maybe it's your Brown Brothers Harriman background, why you made that analogy. But you're right. If we think about the way that we used to bank and how we bank, I go to a brick and mortar bank now for a certified check. That's about it.

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Yeah, [inaudible 00:17:16] when you get your mortgage.

    Kevin Fyock:
    That's right. When you get your mortgage, which honestly you can still do that digitally, but it's a really good analogy, the way that us as consumers have required efficiency in our day-to-day life. Efficiency in care, I think is no different from that. So I appreciate the analogy and I appreciate you joining. This has been a lot of fun, Ed. Thanks for coming on the show and lending your expertise.

    Ed Leibowitz:
    Yeah, I appreciate it, Kevin. It was great catching up.

    Kevin Fyock:
    And to our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed changing The Way Point Solutions are Accessed and Paid For. This is the ninth episode of Season two, the Stretch, a podcast dedicated to the ideas that are revolutionizing the world of workplace health and benefits. If you've enjoyed this episode, we encourage you to check out previous episodes. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast so you can get the latest updates. Thanks so much and have a great day.

  • Podcast Transcript Placeholder

General Disclaimer

The information contained herein and the statements expressed are of a general nature and are not intended to address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Although we endeavor to provide accurate and timely information and use sources we consider reliable, there can be no guarantee that such information is accurate as of the date it is received or that it will continue to be accurate in the future. No one should act on such information without appropriate professional advice after a thorough examination of the particular situation.

Terms of Use

The contents herein may not be reproduced, reused, reprinted or redistributed without the expressed written consent of Aon, unless otherwise authorized by Aon. To use information contained herein, please write to our team.

Aon's Better Being Podcast

Our Better Being podcast series, hosted by Aon Chief Wellbeing Officer Rachel Fellowes, explores wellbeing strategies and resilience. This season we cover human sustainability, kindness in the workplace, how to measure wellbeing, managing grief and more.

Aon Insights Series Asia

Expert Views on Today's Risk Capital and Human Capital Issues

Aon Insights Series Pacific

Expert Views on Today's Risk Capital and Human Capital Issues

Aon Insights Series UK

Expert Views on Today's Risk Capital and Human Capital Issues

Client Trends 2025

Better Decisions Across Interconnected Risk and People Issues.

Construction and Infrastructure

The construction industry is under pressure from interconnected risks and notable macroeconomic developments. Learn how your organization can benefit from construction insurance and risk management.

Cyber Resilience

Our Cyber Resilience collection gives you access to Aon’s latest insights on the evolving landscape of cyber threats and risk mitigation measures. Reach out to our experts to discuss how to make the right decisions to strengthen your organization’s cyber resilience.

Employee Wellbeing

Our Employee Wellbeing collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team. You can also reach out to the team at any time for assistance with your employee wellbeing needs.

Environmental, Social and Governance Insights

Explore Aon's latest environmental social and governance (ESG) insights.

Q4 2023 Global Insurance Market Insights

Our Global Insurance Market Insights highlight insurance market trends across pricing, capacity, underwriting, limits, deductibles and coverages.

Global Risk Management Survey

Better Decisions Across Interconnected Risk and People Issues.

Regional Results

How do the top risks on business leaders’ minds differ by region and how can these risks be mitigated? Explore the regional results to learn more.

Impact Report 2025

Explore Aon's corporate sustainability impact and strategy.

Top 10 Global Risks

Trade, technology, weather and workforce stability are the central forces in today’s risk landscape.

Industry Insights

These industry-specific articles explore the top risks, their underlying drivers and the actions leaders are taking to build resilience.

Human Capital Analytics

Our Human Capital Analytics collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team. Contact us to learn how Aon’s analytics capabilities helps organizations make better workforce decisions.

Human Capital Quarterly Insights Briefs

Read our collection of human capital articles that explore in depth hot topics for HR and risk professionals, including using data and analytics to measure total rewards programs, how HR and finance can better partner and the impact AI will have on the workforce.

Insights for HR

Explore our hand-picked insights for human resources professionals.

Workforce

Our Workforce Collection provides access to the latest insights from Aon’s Human Capital team on topics ranging from health and benefits, retirement and talent practices. You can reach out to our team at any time to learn how we can help address emerging workforce challenges.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Our Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders to help dealmakers make better decisions. Explore our latest insights and reach out to the team at any time for assistance with transaction challenges and opportunities.

Natural Resources and Energy Transition

The challenges in adopting renewable energy are changing with technological advancements, increasing market competition and numerous financial support mechanisms. Learn how your organization can benefit from our renewables solutions. 

Navigating Volatility

How do businesses navigate their way through new forms of volatility and make decisions that protect and grow their organizations?

Parametric Insurance

Our Parametric Insurance Collection provides ways your organization can benefit from this simple, straightforward and fast-paying risk transfer solution. Reach out to learn how we can help you make better decisions to manage your catastrophe exposures and near-term volatility.

Pay Transparency and Equity

Our Pay Transparency and Equity collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team on topics ranging from pay equity to diversity, equity and inclusion. Contact us to learn how we can help your organization address these issues.

Property Risk Management

Forecasters are predicting an extremely active 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Take measures to build resilience to mitigate risk for hurricane-prone properties.

Technology

Our Technology Collection provides access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders on navigating the evolving risks and opportunities of technology. Reach out to the team to learn how we can help you use technology to make better decisions for the future.

Trade

Our Trade Collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders on navigating the evolving risks and opportunities for international business. Reach out to our team to understand how to make better decisions around macro trends and why they matter to businesses.

Transaction Solutions Global Claims Study

Better Decisions Across Interconnected Risk and People Issues.

Weather

With a changing climate, organizations in all sectors will need to protect their people and physical assets, reduce their carbon footprint, and invest in new solutions to thrive. Our Weather Collection provides you with critical insights to be prepared.

Workforce Resilience

Our Workforce Resilience collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's Human Capital team. You can reach out to the team at any time for questions about how we can assess gaps and help build a more resilience workforce.

More Like This

View All
View All
Subscribe CTA Banner