edHEALTH Welcomes Two New Member-Owner Schools in 2024
Now with 27 schools, including Husson University and The Lawrenceville School
January 5, 2024 (Northbridge, MA) – edHEALTH, a consortium of educational institutions providing greater health-care-related savings and services through group purchasing, ownership, and data-driven programs, announced today that two new educational institutions have joined effective January 1, 2024: Husson University in Bangor, Maine and The Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey.
“Husson University and The Lawrenceville School are two excellent educational institutions we are honored to have as edHEALTH member-owners. We look forward to helping them to control healthcare costs while collaborating with their team to continue to create opportunities that support their employee health-related needs,” said edHEALTH President and CEO A. Tracy Hassett.
Janet Kelle, Chief Human Resources Officer at Husson University, explained why joining edHEALTH was an easy decision: “edHEALTH’s purchasing power and our own school savings were two important reasons for Husson University becoming a member. My priority was to ensure our faculty and staff continued to receive top-quality healthcare coverage with minimal disruption. Since edHEALTH offered our existing health plan carrier, the transition has been surprisingly simple. The edHEALTH team led our Human Resources department through the implementation step-by-step. We were so well-prepared for our fall open enrollment that it hardly seemed like a significant transition.”
The Lawrenceville School’s Chief Financial and Administrative Officer, Ben Hammond, shared their institution’s process for joining edHEALTH. “It is the culmination of a major strategic initiative for our school. Several years ago, we took the initial step by shifting from a fully insured to a self-insured medical plan to hold down rapidly increasing healthcare costs that threatened our institution as well as our employees. This first move worked out great for us, but we always knew that as a single employer with 375 employees, we lacked the necessary scale and resources, so the next logical step was to join a captive to share risk across a much larger pool of employees.” Hammond added. “We evaluated several and found edHEALTH to be by far the best fit for our needs, including offering significant savings with minimal disruption to our employees. Our incentives are fully aligned, the health plans are already well designed to serve faculty and staff and their families just like ours, and we can take advantage of innovative best practices with a proven track record of more than 10 years. We are excited to help other independent schools leverage and benefit from our experience and join this growing network of educators working together to solve a pressing need that we all face."
Husson University is edHEALTH’s second higher educational institution in Maine, and The Lawrenceville School is the first private secondary school. “Our thoughtful growth shows the value edHEALTH can bring to different types of educational institutions. We are excited about the different perspectives our two newest schools will offer. I’m so happy to welcome them officially and begin working together. The new year is already off to a fantastic beginning,” Hassett noted.
About edHEALTH: Established in 2013, edHEALTH is the proven employee healthcare solution for higher education and secondary schools. This insurance program provides savings through group purchasing, ownership, and data-driven innovative programs, with over $325 million of annual funding and over $18 million of capital reserves at the stop-loss captive. edHEALTH offers the strength of collaboration with its member-owned institutions and best-in-class business partners. The edHEALTH program is a part of edRISK, a sponsored captive domiciled in Vermont, which is expected to grow significantly in the coming years.
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Photo courtesy of Cloris Ying
