A new health tech startup is aiming to make it easier for smaller, high-growth employers to manage and develop their benefits strategies.
Sounder Benefits provides a mix of artificial-intelligence-driven insights and strategic advisory services, which allows employers to develop a complete approach built on cost management, talent acquisition, cultural enhancement and employee satisfaction.
Building a strategy that touches on all these areas allows these firms to stay competitive in recruitment and retention while better managing costs and healthcare outcomes.
Sounder officially announced its launch Aug. 28, though CEO and co-founder Brian Ancell told Fierce Healthcare the team has been out in the market gauging the temperature and interacting with potential clients for about three months.
Ancell noted that the pace of innovation in healthcare is often slow, and the employers it's targeting are often among the last to secure access to the latest new offerings, as larger firms tend to get the first crack at these programs.
"What we're looking to do is reduce that time of bringing that innovation to market," he said.
Sounder works with employers to develop a three-year benefit strategy that is designed to generate value while improving member access to care. Ultimately, the goal is to drive a satisfied and happy workforce, according to the company.
The brokers and relationship managers working on Sounder's team also provide support to these companies as they consider making the switch to level-funded or self-funded coverage arrangements, according to the announcement.
It also provides data-driven insights and service throughout the year, not just at open enrollment, Sounder said.
Ancell, who previously worked for Premera Blue Cross, a health plan based in Washington state, as well as League, said that experience in the insurance industry gave him a first-hand understanding of where employers are struggling to find benefit offerings that truly meet the needs of their employee populations.
"The idea behind Sounder Benefits is there are great solutions in the marketplace now to actually deliver better health outcomes with greater patient satisfaction at a lower cost," he said. "What Sounder Benefits is designed to do is to be an advisory firm that helps companies with understanding that and offering those better benefit solutions."
Sounder was developed in partnership with Redesign Health, an innovation platform that supports founders and investors in building scalable healthcare businesses. Ancell said the team has worked with Redesign since November.
Redesign equips the team with valuable market research and also assisted with building a leadership team around him, Ancell said.
Redesign is also a key conduit to investment, he said.
"They have investment funds where they've got other investors that come alongside them, put dollars in the funds and then commit dollars into their operating companies they help launch," Ancell said.