Panel discussion: Employer-sponsored health as a governance issue
Employer-sponsored health is now a major financial, legal, operational and workforce issue for large organizations. This opening panel establishes the central thesis of the day: health benefits are no longer a narrow annual renewal exercise; they are a governance system involving fiduciary process, affordability, workforce risk, access to care, vendor oversight and organizational accountability.
Presentation: Fiduciary responsibility and the changing risk environment
Health and welfare plan governance is becoming more demanding as employers face rising cost, greater scrutiny of vendor arrangements, increased expectations around fee transparency and stronger pressure to evidence decision-making. This session examines what senior leaders need to understand about oversight, documentation, vendor selection, plan governance and defensible process in the current risk environment.
Panel discussion: Plan performance, cost and accountability
Employers spend heavily on health benefits, but many still struggle to understand whether that spend is delivering value. This session examines the gap between premium management and real plan performance: access, outcomes, affordability, utilization, vendor incentives, broker and consultant accountability, and the internal governance needed to make better decisions.
Coffee and networking
Panel discussion: Pharmacy, PBMs, specialty drugs and transparency
Pharmacy has become one of the clearest pressure points in employer health governance. Specialty drugs, GLP-1s, rebates, spread pricing, formulary design, PBM contracts and disclosure expectations are forcing employers to ask harder questions about incentives, transparency, access and fiduciary oversight.
Presentation: Care access, prevention and value-based pathways
This session broadens the conversation beyond cost containment. Delayed care, poor navigation, chronic disease, fragmented pathways and avoidable escalation all affect absence, productivity, workforce capacity and claims cost. The emphasis should be practical: how employers can improve access and prevention without buying another disconnected point solution.
Lunch
Presentation: Data governance, AI and vendor oversight
Employers are being sold dashboards, predictive tools, navigation platforms, AI-enabled benefits systems and health data products. The governance question is whether those tools are accurate, lawful, explainable, secure, useful and properly overseen. This session examines how employers should approach health data, AI and vendor oversight without being led by technology hype.
Panel discussion: Behavioral health, disability, leave and workforce risk
Behavioral health, addiction, disability, leave, accommodations and return-to-work are often managed through separate systems, even though they overlap in practice. This panel examines how employers can move from reactive case handling toward an integrated model of workforce risk, support, compliance and organizational accountability.
Presentation: Affordability, plan design and workforce impact
Affordability is not just a premium issue. Deductibles, cost-sharing, network design, drug tiers, navigation requirements and point-of-care costs shape whether employees access care, delay care or avoid it entirely. This session connects plan design to workforce trust, delayed treatment, absenteeism, productivity and workforce impact.
Panel discussion: The future operating model for employer-sponsored health
The closing panel returns the day to governance. Employer-sponsored health now touches benefits, finance, legal, risk, procurement, HR, occupational health, wellbeing, data and workforce strategy. The real question is no longer whether employers provide health benefits, but how they govern health as a complex organizational system.