If you’re a benefits leader, you’re likely facing a familiar challenge: healthcare costs are climbing, and specialty care—surgery, cancer treatment and infusions—is leading the charge. But the good news is you can make a difference for your company’s bottom line and, more importantly, for your people.

Just ask Scott Kirschner, Senior Director of Global Benefits at Greystar, who joined our recent webinar. With 19,000 people on its self-insured health plan (and 28,500 total members), the real estate and property management company found itself in this exact position. By partnering with Lantern, a specialty care platform, Greystar not only gained control over costs, but also enhanced employee benefits in a way that truly resonated.

In this webinar, you’ll hear from:

Shelly Towns, Chief Marketing Officer, Lantern

Raymond Hwang, MD, Associate Chief Medical Officer, Lantern, and practicing spine surgeon

Scott Kirschner, Senior Director, Global Benefits, Greystar

Key Takeaways:

• Specialty care is a significant portion of healthcare spend, but benefits leaders can make an impact through an independent COE
• A robust communication strategy is crucial to drive engagement and make an impact on your healthcare spend
• Local access to high-quality care is key to delivering great outcomes
• Covering a broad range of “plannable” procedures with no exclusions for pre-existing conditions drives greater COE adoption
• Significant cost savings and ROI are achievable: Greystar saved $8 million since launching Lantern in 2019

Greystar Connects Employees to Local Specialists for Surgery

Greystar is a privately held company—the largest in multifamily housing, managing around 3,500 properties across all 50 states. It charges their property owners a fixed monthly amount for each employee enrolled in a health plan. This created a direct business imperative to keep those costs predictable and under control.

“Everything we can do to control that fixed cost helps the business,” Kirschner explained. “And I reinforce that with my team, with our consultants and with our vendors.”

Greystar implemented a surgical Center of Excellence (COE) program through Lantern (then known as SurgeryPlus) in 2019. The program’s model turns the traditional COE on its head. Instead of sending patients across the country for common procedures, Lantern focuses on connecting employees with high-quality specialists in their own communities.

“For the common surgeries that the vast majority of us need, there are high quality providers locally that can provide excellent care,” said Dr. Hwang. “I think that’s the hidden gem that some of us overlook. Traveling a thousand miles to get care [through a traditional COE] comes with certain challenges. It does add additional risk and may not even be a higher quality procedure and experience.”

Lantern contracts directly with specialists through its Network of Excellence and individually vets the providers to make sure they’re in the top of their field. This results in a less than 1% complication rate, compared to the national average of 8-15%.

The Power of Communication and Smart Incentives

When Scott started working at Greystar in 2023, he saw an opportunity to supercharge Lantern’s impact.

“When I joined, I noticed that there were a lot of restrictions we had for the program,” he recalled. “It didn’t really fit with our strategy of how we wanted to help our people and manage costs. We needed to expand awareness and utilization of Lantern.”

Kirschner’s team got to work by removing the limitations, opening the program to all plannable procedures, and ramping up their communication efforts. Most importantly, they addressed a simple question that every employee asks.

“I’ve always challenged people… put yourself in the shoes of your employees… and answer the question, ‘what’s in it for me?’” Kirschner said. “And if you struggle answering that question, you’ve really got to rethink your approach.”

For Greystar employees, the “what’s in it for me” was clear: if you use the Lantern program for your surgery, the company waives your deductible and co-insurance. This was especially crucial for their population. “About half of our workforce is hourly and we don’t want that financial barrier to care to come into play,” Kirschner added.

Greystar Expands Program with Cancer Care

With the surgical program thriving, Kirschner’s team analyzed their data to find the next frontier for savings and member support. The answer was clear and urgent: cancer care.

The decision was driven by hard numbers. “Looking at our data, cancer is our most expensive diagnostic category,” Kirschner said. Greystar has a specific stop-loss insurance with a $200,000 deductible—quite low for an employer of its size—and “the vast majority of our large losses are for cancer,” he added. The financial pressure was undeniable. Furthermore, they saw that infusion therapy has one of the highest trends in healthcare expenses.

But the motivation went beyond just cost. It was about providing a better, more humane experience for employees facing a life-altering diagnosis.

“I think one of the worst things that happens is one of your people gets a new diagnosis, they pull out their phone and the first thing they’re doing is Googling it and they go down that rabbit hole of potentially a lot of misinformation about treatment options,” Kirschner said. “You want that team helping your people with valid, clinically-proven information to help them navigate the system.”

The Lantern cancer care program provides that support, matching employees with a dedicated oncology nurse navigator to guide them and guaranteeing access to a specialist in 10 days or less.

Big Savings and Happier, Healthier Employees

By removing barriers, communicating relentlessly and putting employee needs first, Greystar has achieved wonderful results.

• Nearly $8 million in total savings since launching the surgical program in 2019
• An almost 4.5 times return on investment
• Very high employee satisfaction scores, with team members calling it a “great service”

Cecily H., a Greystar employee, recently used Lantern for surgery and sang its praises. “I wouldn’t have been able to have this surgery without Lantern, and it was honestly a lifesaver,” she said. “I am so glad that my company has this option for us, and I’ve never been happier.”

The impact has also been immediate for the new cancer care program. “Even within the first week of being live, we had four people connect with Lantern, and then a week later we had a couple more people,” said Kirschner, who’s looking forward to hearing employee feedback.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a benefit that employees value. As Towns noted, the tone changes when employees say, “I feel like you did something for me.”