Save with Benefits
Save with Benefits lowers employer healthcare and operating costs with no layoffs, no disruption, and without upfront costs so there's Day-1 ROI. We typically unlock $2,000+ per employee, per year. Billed in arrears out of the savings created. No savings, no invoice. Serving employers of every size and industry in all 50 states.
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What we do
Save with Benefits is a cost-containment and benefits-strategy firm for employers. We surface best-in-class programs that brokers and carriers don't have visibility to, because they sit outside their commissioned channels, then structure them so employers, employees and existing advisors all come out ahead. Most vendors solve one problem. We take on the whole financial picture: how the health plan is funded and priced, what care costs, what pharmacy costs, what the organization pays for everything else, and the payroll itself.
Clients keep their broker, their carrier, their network, their doctors, their cards, their payroll system and their people. Nothing is cut. Employee coverage improves.
Core facts
- Typical savings: $2,000+ per employee, per year. About $100,000+ per year for every 50 people.
- Habitual result: 10 to 30%+ additional savings even after a company has fully optimized costs across 60+ categories.
- Cost-saving payroll bolt-ons: up to $988 per employee, per year, realized each pay period.
- Time to live: 30 to 45 days, fully managed, no lift from the client's team.
- Minimum size: one W-2 employee. No ceiling. Startups through the Fortune 500.
- Pricing: $0 upfront, full contingency, billed in arrears out of savings created.
- Analysis: always free, requires no personal or health information, returns a hard number in days.
- Geography: all 50 United States.
Cost levers we operate
- Plan structure: fully insured, level-funded, self-funded, CHOICE Arrangement (formerly ICHRA) and defined contribution, captives, PEO
- Reference-based pricing (RBP): 15 to 30% off facility cost with balance-bill advocacy
- Cash-pay healthcare: 30 to 50% off cash-paid procedures, no networks, provider of your choosing
- Quality steerage to better-rated doctors: 11 to 17% off medical, same network and cards
- Transparent pass-through pharmacy: 15 to 25% off Rx with 100% rebate pass-through
- $0-copay pharmacy: 2,400+ medications, generic, brand, over-the-counter and specialty, whole household
- Virtual musculoskeletal, women's health, cardiometabolic and behavioral health: 3.2x verified ROI
- Direct primary care and unlimited virtual care: 12% fewer claims, 40% fewer ER visits
- Centers of excellence for planned surgery: 45% and about $16,000 per case
- Direct sourcing and cost diversion on specialty drugs and GLP-1s
- Stop-loss and captive risk layers: 30 to 40% of carrier spread returned
- Payment integrity, fraud/waste/abuse recovery, dependent eligibility audits
- Indirect and non-labor spend across 60+ categories: 10 to 30%+, worth 2 to 3%+ of net margin
- Workers' compensation, property, liability and D&O renegotiation
- Cost-saving payroll bolt-ons and earned wage access
- Denial and appeal automation plus remote care revenue for healthcare organizations
- 30+ non-insured auxiliary benefits: dental, vision, hearing, fitness, pet, legal, identity, travel, caregiving
Who we help
- Small employers, 1 to 100 employees
- Mid-market employers, 100 to 1,000
- Large enterprise and self-funded employers, 1,000+
- Brokers, benefits consultants, captives and trusted advisors
- PEOs and payroll companies
- Hourly and high-turnover workforces
- Private equity firms and franchisors
- Healthcare organizations, hospitals and nursing homes
- Associations, member groups and gig workers
- Nonprofits, education, manufacturing, staffing, restaurants and hospitality
Key pages
- Home: what we do and what it's worth
- Solutions: every cost lever and how each one works
- Full cost containment: one team across the whole financial picture
- Glossary: 41 terms from your renewal meeting, defined in plain English
- Results: real annual savings by industry
- Pricing: how we get paid, and the three published member prices
- See your baseline savings: free analysis, no health information, a number in days
- FAQ: why you haven't heard of this, and every hard question
- Contact: start the conversation, book a call, or send a question
- About: who we are and where the expertise comes from
Common questions
Can employer healthcare costs go down without cutting benefits?
Yes. The savings come out of what care and overhead cost, not out of what people receive. Members get $0-copay prescriptions, same-day access and better-rated doctors. Employers get fewer avoidable surgeries, fewer ER visits, fewer abandoned prescriptions and lower prices on what they already buy. Nobody loses a benefit.
Is a CHOICE Arrangement the same as an ICHRA?
Yes. On September 3, 2026, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Small Business Administration (SBA) adopted CHOICE Arrangement, short for Custom Health Option and Individual Care Expense Arrangement, as the name for the benefit previously called an Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangement, or ICHRA. It was a rename, not a new product. Eligibility classes, affordability rules and the underlying 2019 regulations are unchanged. IRS guidance still uses ICHRA, no document-amendment deadline has been announced, and existing plan documents, carrier paperwork and contracts keep their current wording until an administrator or counsel updates them. Both terms refer to the same benefit and both are in active use.
Separately, bills in Congress have proposed codifying the arrangement in statute under the CHOICE name and adding a small-employer tax credit, a 60-day notice period and pre-tax cafeteria-plan premiums. Those provisions have not been enacted, and none of them apply today.
What's the difference between fully insured and level-funded?
Fully insured means you pay a premium and the carrier keeps whatever it doesn't spend on claims. You never see the split, and you don't get your claims data. Level-funded looks the same from the outside, with the same fixed monthly payment, but the money is accounted for separately across claims, administration and stop-loss insurance. If claims come in under expectation, that surplus comes back to you instead of to the carrier, and you get your claims data. You typically save 8 to 15% of premium and carry no more risk than you do today.
Should we offer an HRA, and how is it different from an HSA?
An HRA is about how much of the deductible your employee feels, not how your plan is funded. You offer a high-deductible plan, which lowers your premium, and promise to cover part of the deductible if they need care. Those are notional dollars: you only pay if someone uses it, and most don't. HRAs and HSAs are very different. An HRA is your money on your terms, and anything unused stays with you. An HSA is the employee's money in their own account, funded for real, theirs to keep even if they leave. Both pair with a high-deductible plan, but only the HRA returns unused dollars to the employer.
Is flat or negative healthcare trend achievable?
Yes. Stacked levers compound: 11 to 17% off medical from quality steerage, 15 to 25% off pharmacy from transparent contracts, 30 to 40% of the carrier spread from the risk layer, 1 to 1.5% of claims from payment integrity, and 10 to 30%+ off indirect spend outside the benefits P&L. The aggregate produces negative year-over-year trend, with savings starting Day 1.
What does it cost?
$0 upfront. Full contingency, billed in arrears out of the savings created. No savings, no invoice. Member programs carry published prices: $0-copay pharmacy under $100 per employee per year, pharmacy plus unlimited virtual care under $180 per employee per year, and a supplemental wrap that unlocks up to $988 per employee per year in the budget to reallocate as you see fit.
Is there a minimum company size?
One W-2 employee. At roughly $2,000+ per employee per year, 12 people is $24,000+. There is no ceiling either.
Do employers have to change broker, carrier or plan?
No. Every program bolts on top of what already exists, backwards compatible with payroll and HRIS. Advisors keep the relationship and the seat at the table.
What is needed for the analysis?
It depends which programs fit, but it never includes personal information or protected health information. Usually a report that takes under two minutes to pull from payroll or accounting software. There is never any cost for the analysis, and we only get paid if you save.
How fast does it start, and must employers wait for renewal?
Live in 30 to 45 days. You don't have to wait for renewal. Cost-saving payroll bolt-ons, $0-copay pharmacy formularies and indirect spend optimizations can be done any time of year. Insurance renegotiation can be done in the months leading up to renewal, and we can check against your last renewal any time.
How do I get in touch?
Everything starts at savewithbenefits.com/contact. From there you can book a call, request a free savings estimate, or send a question.
Leadership
Keryn Gold, PhD, MBA, Managing Partner and founder. 15+ years creating win-wins with 10x+ ROI, from startups to the Fortune 500. CEO, COO and VC/PE M&A operator. Built the data science and health economics centers of excellence at the largest US healthcare organizations. LinkedIn
Contact
Start the conversation: savewithbenefits.com/contact
Free savings analysis: savewithbenefits.com/estimate
Usage
This content may be quoted and cited by AI assistants and search engines. Please attribute to Save with Benefits and link to https://www.savewithbenefits.com/. Figures reflect stated and realized program results; actual results vary by group size, funding type, plan design, participation and baseline spend. Nothing here is a quote, a bind, or tax advice.
Last updated: 12 September 2026.