From the May 20, 2021 issue of Captive ReviewCaptive Review recognized Educators Health Exchange (edHEALTH) President and CEO, Tracy Hassett, as a top 10 Power Captive Owner. The Captive Review Power 50 is an annual list of the most influential captive insurance professionals from the last year. With entrants from around the world, the list represents the best of the best of the captive industry.

Reproduced from the special edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education: Financial Strategies for a Crisis and BeyondBy ALEXANDER C. KAFKA | December 2020As with the upstate New York consortia, New England has its own consortia within consortia and overlapping groups. For instance, a major driver of collaborative thinking in the region has been the 19-member Boston Consortium, founded in 1995. Its members share audit resources, risk-management and travel pools, specialty working groups (“communities of practice”), and professional-development programs. Three members — Babson College, Olin College of Engineering, and Wellesley College — have their own consortium, too, with student cross-registration opportunities and some shared administrative functions and student activities. In addition, originating from discussions in 2006 among Boston Consortium members, some colleges and charter ...

Reproduced from the December 2020 issue of the Risk Retention ReporterDownload the December 2020 edHEALTH Risk Retention Reporter Reprint.pdfBy CYNTHIA MCGRATH | December 24, 2020As the coronavirus pandemic has decimated large swaths of the economy, higher education has been hit particularly hard. Many colleges and universities were already experiencing shaky finances before COVID. Sixty percent of schools missed their fall 2019 enrollment goals according to a February 2020 Chronicle of Higher Education story. Changing demographics and drops in international enrollment are cited as primary contributors. There’s been a significant drop in the U.S. birthrate, leading to projected enrollment declines for the foreseeable future. New government policies limited the number of international students who generally pay full tuition prices.The pandemic has exacerbated these financial pressures....

Published in the April 1, 2020 issue of the New England Journal of Higher Education.By CYNTHIA McGRATH | April 1, 2020The COVID-19 pandemic is top of mind for everyone. There’s no aspect of our lives that’s been untouched. For colleges and universities, the novel coronavirus crisis has caused a major educational shift. Campuses are closed to students. Courses have moved online. And, many graduation ceremonies will be canceled or postponed. How long the new norm continues is unknown, but there is bound to be an effect on higher education budgets.Before COVID-19 entered our lives, colleges and universities were already facing enormous pressures on their bottom lines. Sixty percent of higher education institutions (HEIs) missed their fall 2019 enrollment goals, according to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education story. Changing demographics and drops in international enrollments are prim...

By CYNTHIA McGRATH | January 23, 2019FRANKLIN, MA – Attracting and retaining talented faculty and staff is a top concern of many colleges and universities. Dean College was looking to gain a competitive edge when it decided to improve its employee health benefits and join edHEALTH, a purchasing collaborative of 22 colleges and universities, effective January 1, 2020. The move halved employees’ out-of-pocket deductible.“Offering robust healthcare benefits enables us to attract and retain quality employees,” said Daniel Modelane, Vice President of Financial Services and Treasurer of Dean College. “The previous deductible was a lot of exposure for our employees, and this enhancement will be a helpful recruiting tool.”“Dean was looking to move to a self-insurance arrangement for staff healthcare costs,” said Sean Carney, Partner, 360 Corporate Benefit Advisors, the school’s benefits consu...

By CYNTHIA McGRATH | January 21, 2020Yonkers, NY – Sarah Lawrence College is taking a new and innovative approach to controlling rising faculty and staff healthcare costs: joining edHEALTH, a member-owned healthcare collaborative of 22 colleges, universities, and other educational institutions. Sarah Lawrence is the first member from the State of New York.As healthcare costs continue to rise as a percentage of operating budgets for higher education institutions across the country, Sarah Lawrence will be able to continue to provide high quality health insurance for its faculty and staff by leveraging the larger group’s purchasing power, and avoid costly year-to-year changes. In fact, by joining edHEALTH on January 1, 2020, Sarah Lawrence averted a potential double-digit healthcare cost increase and will be able to better predict and plan for future rate changes.In addition to Sarah Law...

Published in the November 4, 2018 issue of Business InsuranceBy GLORIA GONZALEZ | November 4, 2018Telemedicine helps fill the gap for access to primary doctors and provides healthcare access to busy people. However, the follow up care gap is inconsistent.Telemedicine is growing as the U.S. physician population ages, health care organizations seek new ways to provide care and consumers become as comfortable using technology to receive treatment for conditions ranging from sore throats to drug addiction as they are ordering other products and services off the internet.The rise of telemedicine, however, brings new medical malpractice risks and challenges such as potential regulatory and legal exposures when health care providers are licensed in a state other than the one where their patients live and when telemedicine care is delivered by advance practice clinicians — nurse practitioners...

From the October 25, 2018 issue of Pittsburgh Business TimesBy NICK KEPPLER | October 25, 2018“If our people are our greatest asset, the most tremendous asset they bring to our company every day and to your organizations is really their health,” said Lola Criss, director of health and retirement benefits for Trinity Industries, a manufacturing firm that employs more than 9,000. “The ways we are responsible in helping them to manage their health and facilitate their way to managing their own health issues is really critical.”At a forum sponsored by UPMC Health Plan at the Fairmont Pittsburgh on Oct. 25, Criss outlined the importance of health care to the concept of human capital, the value employees bring to their employer. She and two panelists agreed that all of the departments and personnel who handle health-related concerns should integrate their approach and share data to save mon...

Olin College of Engineering | July 31, 2017of Dedham, Mass., has been named the 2017 Distinguished Business Officer of the Year by the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO). Hannabury is currently the Executive Vice President at Olin College of Engineering and was one of the founding leaders of the college. The highly competitive national award is given to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution over the course of his or her career to the field of business and financial management in higher education.Hannabury’s nomination was based on the formative role he played in founding Olin, his personal mentorship of many staff at Olin and elsewhere, and his leadership in creating innovative business practices for the entire industry through the Boston Consortium for Higher Education and Educators Health (“edHEALTH”).“Olin would not be the suc...

From the February 27, 2017 issue of the New England Board of Higher Education By A. TRACY HASSETT | February 27, 2017Tuition prices at colleges and universities are high. On that, pretty much everyone—from parents to students to college administrators—can agree. It’s also true that salaries and benefits are the single biggest chunk of every higher education institution’s (HEI) budget. And one of the largest and most difficult costs to contain is group employee health insurance. In fact, health insurance represents on average 4% to 5% of the total operating budgets at most private HEIs in New England. The situation is particularly difficult for smaller New England HEIs because they don’t have the power to bargain with commercial insurers enjoyed by, say, MIT or Harvard. They are forced to fend for themselves in negotiating for benefit packages, whose costs—including all benefits paid f...

From the December 5, 2016 issue of the Boston GlobeBy PRIYANKA DAYAL McCLUSKEY | December 5, 2016The faculty and staff at Olin College of Engineering are getting a rare and unexpected holiday treat this month: a break from health insurance.Olin College officials said they’ve made so much progress in curbing health care costs this year that their employees don’t have to pay any premiums in December.For 96 people who work at the small Needham college, that means extra cash they can use for holiday shopping, or anything else.Olin is one of a dozen local colleges and universities that have teamed up to cut health insurance costs. Instead of buying coverage from insurers, they formed their own insurance company, sharing the costs and risks for their combined 10,000 employees.When those employees stay fairly healthy and medical claims are low, the schools save on insurance costs.The consort...

From the October 12, 2016 NACUBO Business Officer MagazineBy NANCY MANN JACKSON | October 12, 2016Against the backdrop of mounting criticism over rising higher education costs, college and university business officers are looking for creative ways to cut those costs. For many, the area of escalating employee health­care prices is an ideal place to start. Across the country, several groups of higher education institutions have joined to form health insurance consortia, working together to provide benefits to their employees at a fraction of the cost they once paid individually."With the rising costs of higher education, anything we can do to lower that cost is important," says Tracy Hassett, CEO and president of edHEALTH, a health insurance collaborative launched in 2013 by 11 colleges and universities in the Boston area. "And working together to provide health insurance for employees ...

From the October 12, 2015 issue of Worcester Business JournalBy SAM BONACCI | OCTOBER 12, 2015One year ago, when Worcester Polytechnic Institute dove into the high-risk, high-reward world of self-insurance, it hoped the gamble would pay off enough to keep tuition in check. Luckily, WPI had friends. WPI joined a new collaborative of colleges and universities – called Educators Health LLC, or edHEALTH – that has allowed small- to mid-sized schools to pool their self-insurance efforts and keep potential outlandish costs in check. The result over that first year was less risk and more savings.Ditching full-coverage from insurance companies is typically a luxury reserved for large companies. Firms like Hopkinton computer giant EMC can customize their coverage while retaining money unspent on claims that would normally be profits for insurance companies. With a large pool of employees, they...