Emplify Health by Bellin’s direct-to-employer health program:
- Serves 112 companies
- 27,000 employees
- Nearly 80% of quality indicators met
- $9.1 million projected savings for 14 top-tier companies
Emplify Health by Bellin’s direct‑to‑employer health care program, developed more than 25 years ago, is a model that’s proving its success in dollars saved and lives protected.
The proactive and integrated approach addresses gaps in health care and makes health care more accessible, says Randy Van Straten, vice president of business health. The goal is to catch health care issues early to improve outcomes and lower health care costs.
The program launched out of a need to lower health care costs for Bellin’s own employees. Van Straten recalls receiving a call in 2001 from former Bellin CFO Dave Albrecht, who informed him that health plan renewal rates for Bellin employees were potentially seeing a 30% increase the next year. Albrecht sent Van Straten an article about a hospital in Elkhart, Indiana that had worked on educating employees and offered tools like coaching to help improve their health.
“So we put together this team, and we rolled up our sleeves and we worked on it,” Van Straten says. “And instead of a 30% increase that next year, we had a 27% decrease in costs.” Fast forward to 2025, the company has saved more than $10 million since the program’s inception.
Emplify Health by Bellin soon took their successful program out to companies, using onsite or near-site primary care, physical therapy, nursing, well-being, occupational health and comprehensive population health services. Health coordinators assist employees with making appointments.
“What happens is we have a more engaging visit with this model, an increased engaged visit,” Van Straten says. “We talk about everything under the sun, and we can work on closing gaps in care.”
The program also keeps track of clinical data and encourages regular health screenings. Catching cancers early, for example, both dramatically improves survival rates and reduces the cost of treatment.
Employers also create a financial incentive for employees to stay up-to-date with their appointments, such as through lower premiums or health reimbursements.
The company now has 112 partner companies contracting for its direct‑to‑employer services.
In 2024, those companies saved $6.7 million over what they would have spent through insurance, Van Straten says.
A subset of those employers — 14 companies in a top-tier population health level within the program — saw a health care premium renewal rate that was about half of the expected 10.1% in 2026, or a savings that equated to
$9.1 million, he says.
The program also examines the social determinants of health for each population, including risks because of physical inactivity, lack of social connections, alcohol or tobacco use, stress and even factors like food insecurity and transportation.
Emplify Health by Bellin’s Community Link can help connect patients to resources in their own neighborhoods, or to employer benefits such as EAPs. “This is really the key to population health — having the data and then the resources to help drive that and then aligning those incentives too.”
Brian Mannering, CEO of LaForce, says the company joined the Bellin direct‑to‑employer program about 20 years ago as a way to both lower costs and to improve access to health care for its employees. The company has onsite hours for both a nurse and nurse practitioner.
“Our philosophy is to be more leading edge … and think about ways that we could impact our employees, make it easier for them to get health care,” Mannering says. Besides improving access, there also have been big wins, such as when providers have helped catch heart attacks in progress, for example.
Saving millions of dollars has a big impact on companies and therefore local communities, Van Straten says. “This means that maybe employers can hire more people, and our schools can add more teachers,” he says. “This helps our community thrive.”
