How AT&T Prepares for Cancer & Surgery Costs of the Future

The benefits landscape has shifted dramatically over the past decade. Like many benefits leaders, you likely recall adding one point solution after the next hoping to drive down healthcare costs.

Ben Jackson, Vice President of Global Benefits at AT&T, said these point solutions increasingly became difficult to manage over time, caused employee confusion and didn’t deliver ROI. And that’s when they knew it was time for a change.

To reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes, they shifted toward a targeted strategy for specialty care in 2024. The reason? Those plannable procedures, from knee replacements to colonoscopies, along with cancer treatments and infusions, drive 50% or more of healthcare spend.

By helping to guide employees to high-quality providers through a specialty care solution, AT&T is seeing better outcomes and hard-dollar savings.

In this webinar, Ben shared more about their shift in healthcare benefits and how they’re preparing for cancer and surgery costs of the future.

Key takeaways: 

• How the benefits landscape has shifted in the last 10 years and what that means for your strategy
• AT&T’s forward-looking specialty care strategy, with a focus on cancer
• Cost-saving opportunities that don’t sacrifice care quality
• How to ensure employees get the right treatment, at the right place, at the right price

Looking Into How Healthcare is Impacting Employers

With over two decades of experience in the benefits industry and nearly 16 years working with AT&T, Ben Jackson has seen his fair share of shifts when it comes to managing healthcare and how it’s impacting companies across the U.S.

“Healthcare is a hell of a ride at times,” Ben admitted. “It’s a different ballgame, but we’re up for the challenge and that’s why it’s exciting.”

Employer healthcare costs have risen dramatically. Data from Aon, for example, shows a 9% trend, and Ben said he hears companies experiencing 12 to 18% trend.

“We should be mentally prepared for double-digits in trend,” he said. “If you’re covering GLP-1s for weight loss, you can add 5% to those numbers. And if you’re an aging workforce like AT&T, it’s probably 14% for some of your populations. People are staying in the workforce longer.”

Cancer drug innovations are also driving costs, and while scientific advancements are great, Ben admitted, employers are having to make tough coverage decisions.

Shifting the North Star of Healthcare Benefits to Focus on Quality

Over time, AT&T’s benefits strategy has shifted when it comes to lowering costs overall. From 2010 to 2020, Ben said their North Star concentrated on consumerism, empowering employees to make informed choices and to shop for care. That approach fell flat, however, he said. The cost of care didn’t necessarily equal high-quality, and there were too many point solutions that ultimately didn’t lead to better health outcomes.

“We spent a lot of time with employees educating them on what each solution actually does,” he said. “We tried this for a long time, and there were some wins, but also some key learnings. It naturally drove the question: ‘What comes next?’ It caused us to go back to the drawing board.”

That shifted AT&T’s North Star to instead focus on quality healthcare, including measurable, great patient outcomes and hard-dollar savings.

“In the long run, we knew that was going to benefit the member, and also our company,” Ben added. “When we can navigate to the highest-quality surgeon, there’s less likelihood of infection and ending up in the ER. Every time members have to go back into the setting of care, your costs are getting away from you.”

Choosing a Specialty Care Solution to Guide Members to Best Care

With a new concentration on quality healthcare, AT&T sought out a specialty care solution to help guide members to the best surgery and cancer care. “The top 5% of our population is driving almost two-thirds of our costs,” Ben said. “While we will always have programs and opportunities available for the entire population, we knew that managing that spend was where we needed to focus.”

AT&T ultimately chose Lantern’s Network of Excellence and Specialty Care Platform for 5 key reasons: 

Unquestionable clinical quality: Lantern vets individual surgeons in its Network of Excellence and does continuous monitoring

Surgical appropriateness: Lantern makes sure care is necessary thanks to its partnership with GAM (Global Appropriateness Measures), which looks at 300+ live appropriateness and outcomes measures

Broad scope: Lantern covers all plannable procedures across the U.S. closer to where their employees worked and lived

Proven ROI: As a licensed third-party administrator, Lantern contracts directly with providers to ensure hard-dollar savings

A Platform for Specialty Care: Lantern is one-stop-shop for surgery, cancer care and infusions that grows with the needs of employers over time

Ben offered advice for benefits leaders when it comes to assessing specialty care solutions to make sure they will truly deliver quality care. “As an employer or as a buyer, you really need to press your vendors on how they define quality, because it’s not all the same. Lantern competitors have a less rigorous take on vetting.”

He added that quality may also look different for an employee, noting that they might look at online reviews for parking or the variety of magazines in a waiting room. “That might be cool to put on Yelp, but it doesn’t have anything to do with real quality that drives savings and outcomes.”

Access to care was also important for AT&T because they have employees in every state. Ben said they needed a partner like Lantern to scale and grow their network of doctors. “We’re trying to find the best care in the right setting at the right time,” he said. “Your ability to be there and scale geographically was a big part of our decision to choose Lantern.”

To bend the cost curve, AT&T needed a solution that was going to deliver true ROI. Gone were the days of hoping for better outcomes and savings. “Hard dollars matter,” Ben said. “Whether we’re talking bundled payments for surgery or the work you did to help us negotiate costs for cell and gene therapies, these show up in real dollar savings.”

To realize savings, AT&T needed to get the message out about Lantern. Ben says promoting the value to employees was easy thanks to Lantern Care Advocates who were there to help answer questions and navigate employees to the best providers.

“We say, ‘We’re going to find the best provider possible to help you,’ and the employee feels it,” Ben said. “To be there in the moments that matter for your people, these are really special opportunities.”

Supporting AT&T Employees with Cancer

After a soft launch, AT&T began offering Lantern’s Cancer solution in 2025 for all members enrolled in a self-funded medical plan. Ben said this was important since cancer is their no. 1 cost driver of spend. “And again, it was important to show up in the moments that matter for our employees,” he added.

Ben said they appreciated the one-on-one nurse concierge model to help members with cancer. When members get a diagnosis, it can be confusing, he added, from managing work to their care plan to where they go for care.

“The thoughtfulness of how you all have set up the care teams that surround members is really good,” Ben said. “Whether it’s cancer or surgery, people just want to feel like there are advocates that are there for them.”

With Lantern’s partnership with AccessHope, AT&T members also get oversight across all lines of treatment from NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers. Second opinions matter, but usually only happen at diagnosis, if they happen at all. This oversight also helps to keep care in the community, where drug and infusion costs are substantially lower.

“I’ve told our team and partners, every time we hear the word cancer, you should immediately think Lantern and give them the number or tell them to visit the app,” Ben said. “Cancer equals Lantern. That’s where we want to navigate our people to for care.”

3 Questions Every Benefits Leader Needs to be Asking to Address High-Cost Healthcare

As benefits leaders consider their future strategy to address the high cost of healthcare, Dickon and Ben discussed the three questions they should be asking:

• What is my benefits program North Star?
• Are the results my vendors deliver aligned with my North Star?
• Is my plan design aligned with my savings strategy?

Your CFO, Ben said, is likely knocking on your door asking what’s going on with these rising costs, and you can’t ignore putting a strategy in place to address them.

“In these tougher times is when you need a North Star more than ever because you’re likely being pulled in a variety of different directions,” Ben said.

Evaluate whether you need to make a shift in your strategy and if you’re on the right track.

“That exercise has led us to believe that quality is the right North Star for AT&T,” he added. “In a time of double-digit trend, we are going to have to take some swings. Try stuff and stop tinkering with out-of-pocket maximums and deductibles because we’re not going to create the relief we need from these financial headwinds.”