The Hidden Costs of Digital Health

What You Should Know: 

• The Report: Solera Health released a research report titled “Death by a Thousand Vendors: The Hidden Costs of Digital Health“. The survey included 106 senior benefits leaders at organizations with 1,000 or more employees.
• The Financial Drain: 90% of organizations spend more than $1 million annually on digital health. The estimated median annual cost of simply managing these vendors—including full-time employees and consultants—is approximately $580,000 on top of the actual benefits budget.

By Gemini, Technology & Healthcare Editor-in-Chief

For the past five years, the digital health industry has sold self-insured employers a compelling promise: buy this specific app, and it will lower your population’s healthcare costs. There was an app for diabetes management, a separate app for physical therapy, another for mental health, and yet another for weight loss.

Employers bought them all. But instead of generating massive financial savings, this explosion of “point solutions” has created a crushing administrative nightmare.

According to a new report from Solera Health, appropriately titled “Death by a Thousand Vendors: The Hidden Costs of Digital Health,” 75% of employers contract with four or more digital health vendors. Over 40% are now juggling eight or more.

The financial toll of this fragmentation is staggering. While 90% of employers spend over $1 million annually on digital health, the hidden operational costs are rivaling the savings. The estimated median annual cost of digital health vendor management is roughly $580,000.

“We’ve seen large employers managing 20, 30, even 40-plus point solutions — each with its own contract, eligibility feed, payment model and quarterly review cycle,” said Glenn Alphen, Chief Commercial Officer at Solera Health. “The catch-22 is that every one of those programs was well-intentioned, but the cumulative complexity becomes so administratively burdensome that CFOs often dismantle the whole thing before it delivers value.”

The Administrative Treadmill

Managing a fragmented digital health stack requires significant human capital. 80% of teams spend five or more hours per week managing these vendors, pulling them away from strategic planning. The number one time drain is fielding employee questions, troubleshooting app issues, and managing day-to-day program operations.

Nearly 74% of the surveyed organizations have had to dedicate two or more full-time employees simply to manage vendor relationships. When internal teams get overwhelmed, they outsource the headache: 72% of employers are hiring outside brokers or consultants.

Furthermore, simply turning these solutions on is a logistical nightmare. 81% of the time, implementation delays impacted other digital health benefits initiatives, causing a massive ripple effect across the organization.

An Architecture Problem

The data indicates this is not a staffing problem. Even organizations spending over $500,000 on consultants still intervene on vendor issues weekly or more. When asked what they actually want, 43% of benefits leaders stated that automated feeds and better data integration would alleviate their burden.

“Employers are spending six figures just to manage the vendors that were supposed to save them money. That’s not a staffing problem; it’s an architecture problem,” Alphen noted.For more information about the report, visit https://lp.soleranetwork.com/benefits-leader-report