With rapid change in the health care space, the board members of the Pittsburgh Business Group on Health knew the organization needed to adapt to remain relevant to its employer members.
Business leaders started the independent employer coalition in the early 1980s, banding together to address health care costs — learning together, buying together and holding the system accountable together.
Those foundational principles still hold true, but Jessica Brooks, the new CEO and executive director who joined the PBGH three years ago, sought to do more.
“My background before this role was in diversity and inclusion… it was one of those skills that I didn’t realize it would be as transferable as it is,” she says. “I was trained to look at everything and find the gaps in everything, see where we’re not being inclusive, where are there opportunities to engage others — that’s just how I’m trained — and so everything I look at through the organization is through that lens of diversity, diversification and inclusion.”
Diversifying in all sectors
The PBGH was heavily dependent on its group purchasing program. Relying on one revenue stream was risky, especially with added competition from private exchanges and consulting firms with carve-out programs.
In addition, when Brooks looked at the organization’s membership list, she noticed that the PBGH wasn’t engaging smaller employers.
“Why do we only have a handful of employers with less than 1,000 employees? Don’t they need us as well?” she says. “And if we do bring them in, are we ready for them? Are we truly able to add value to them? Based on our programs and our education, not so much.”
Every part of the PBGH’s business model had to evolve because when it diversified its membership, everything else had to change with it, from its advocacy approach to the educational programming, Brooks says.
The organization was primarily a large self-insured business group on health, without actually saying that. Now it has more employer sizes and types represented within its 90 members.
In the past two years, the PBGH has educated members on the value of health care and health care consolidation, created special programs for fully insured and global employers, become more vocal in discussing health issues, and worked to create an aggregated health care database to help drive decisions.
“Literally, there has been no stone unturned, but most of the foundational elements are still there. I would say we’ve just taken more of a vertical approach to our business than just a horizontal approach,” she says.
The pains of change
Brooks says she moved really fast to include employers not from the organization’s traditional base, which has been uncomfortable for some of the board and members.
“The great news is that we have been able to accomplish a whole lot, even with (that) apprehension,” she says.
