Health Trend Talks: From benefit insights to business impact

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[On-screen text: Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare]

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STEPHANIE FEHR: When you think about the human experience, benefits should be a part of that entire experience, not something you think of when you're sick or you need something because something has happened.

[On-screen text: Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare]

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[Craig Kurtzweil speaking on screen]

[On-screen text: Craig Kurtzweil, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual]

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Welcome to Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare. I'm Craig Kurzweil, the Chief Data Analytics Officer for UnitedHealthcare’s Commercial Business. Today I'm pleased to be joined by Stephanie Fehr, the Chief People Officer for UnitedHealthcare, who will share how she transforms data and insights into smarter strategies and real business impact. Stephanie, welcome to the podcast.

[Craig Kurtzweil and Stephanie Fehr sitting in a recording studio set, speaking into microphones, having a conversation]

STEPHANIE FEHR: Thank you, Craig. Great to be here.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself for the audience?

[On-screen text: Stephanie Fehr, Chief People Officer, UnitedHealthcare]

STEPHANIE FEHR: Sure. Of course. I'm Stephanie Fehr. I lead the people strategy for UnitedHealthcare, official title, Chief People Officer. But really, the way I like to describe it is ensuring that our employees have work and experiences that really enrich their own lives and engage their human spirit. And that's the whole reason I got into HR. So it's a real privilege.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Before you came to UnitedHealthcare, you came from Apple.

STEPHANIE FEHR: I did.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: That's a big shift.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Yeah, it is.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: From the consumer tech world into health care. How has that shift transformed kind of how you think about employee benefits and how you strategize with your teams?

STEPHANIE FEHR: Yeah, it's such a good question. And it's funny, leaving Apple was one of the hardest decisions I made, but coming to United was one of the easiest, if that makes sense. I never really thought about leaving something. I thought about going to something. And I think Apple is probably the best consumer company in the world, at least I'd like to think so. And when I came to United, the mission drew me. And the mission drew me for so many reasons, personally, professionally, but I wanted to be something that was a part of making people's lives better. And there's nothing more important than your health or your health care. So that's why I came.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, as someone who leads people's strategy for one of the world's largest health care companies, you're somewhat both the architect and the customer.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Absolutely.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: How does that shape some of your strategy as well?

STEPHANIE FEHR: It really does. I feel very responsible for our employees’ experience. But I will tell you, being a consumer helps me look through that lens. And frankly, my age also helps me look at the five generations of workers we have in the workplace. And when you think about benefits, it looks different for every season of life. And I remember having my first baby, my benefits interests were really different than they are now. So really, we are responsible for making sure that every employee's needs are met in the season of life that they're in.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Knowing that your population is multigenerational, multidimensional, there's a delicate balance between having benefits that are kind of peanut butter spread across the total population versus making sure they're personalized for the unique needs of that population. Given your diverse workforce that you serve, how do you take that into account and create those kind of personalized benefits?

STEPHANIE FEHR: Yeah, it's a great question. And Craig, you help us with that a lot. Data really informs that in so many ways. But when I think about the seasons of life that somebody goes through and making sure that we understand what's important to them, we do a lot of listening on the front end, which yields a lot of data around what people are interested in. And then we look at utilization and we look at what people are actually engaging in. And then, frankly, efficacy. Are there programs that we've implemented that really yield results for our people? And sometimes they don't, and that's when we make changes and we're fluid and flexible. But being an advocate for people through navigation, through moments that matter, that's what really matters. And it’s funny, people think of benefits when they need something, typically, and we're trying to change that. So when you think about the human experience, benefits should be a part of that entire experience, not something you think of when you're sick or you need something because something has happened. And that's a big head shift for people and including myself. Before I came here, I think I was one of those people that thought of benefits as kind of a reactionary thing. And now I'd like to get rid of the word benefits and think about it as part of your life experience and products and services and treatments that help people get through life in the best way possible, which is a challenge. But I think it's a mindset shift that we need to engage in.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Especially in the health care space. It's very personal.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Very personal. Absolutely, yes.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: So speaking of some of our population, as we review some of the data about UnitedHealthcare's population, obviously there's lots of subpopulations underneath that. Is there anyone that comes to mind that has kind of unique and different needs that your benefits team is able to kind of focus in on?

STEPHANIE FEHR: Yeah, for sure. It’s funny, I think about the different jobs across the company and really, the populations that exist in those jobs are very diverse themselves. So I'll just give you an example. We have, like everyone, it doesn't matter what level you are, we have experiences in our life where we need a little more care, a little more advocacy, a little more support. So we've actually taken into consideration what I would call a tiered support system. There's some things you can do that are very self-service oriented, and frankly, that's what you want. You don't want to take the time to interact with a person. And AI comes to mind as something that's going to help facilitate that, which will lower costs, create access, create ease of use. And then I think there's some navigation experiences, and I always use Maven as a great example. I mean, as a woman, it's great to have a service that I can call and ask a question about what I'm experiencing that is unique to my own female journey. And then there are times when people have a real crisis and that, I think we've all been through times in our life when you have a crisis and you need care, you need advocacy from a human being. And we also have that service. So recently, we've done a lot of data inquiry around social determinants of health across our employee population. And what we know is there are people in our population who don't have access. Exactly 22% of our population say they don't feel like they have access to $500 during an emergency situation, which is truly something we want to support and help people think about. So we have advocates that help them with financial planning, help them with how they are going to think about saving, how they're going to prepare for sending their kids to college, all those things, all those life moments that matter.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Yeah, it's interesting, you think about health care data, and you think about we always use it to describe decision making. Are people making good choices, bad choices. And we view that analytically through a very sanitized lens. But it comes back to health care is just part of life.

STEPHANIE FEHR: It's part of life.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: And good decision making, bad decision making, life gets in the way of what we think of as good or bad clinical choices like ER utilization. And it comes down to where people are and what they need at that point in time.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And it's funny, as an employer, we are playing a bigger part in people's lives than we've ever had before, and I think people are turning to their employers for help. And what's interesting to me, and my mom is 81 and she was a clinician, she was an RN her whole life. And I watch her make decisions about her own health that are so inspiring because she knows the data, having been a clinician. But every morning she gets up and she makes a choice to get out of bed and walk. I mean, what a huge thing for her cognitive health, for her physical health. But if we as consumers can be educated through data to make those decisions that are intentional, sometimes not easy, but important, and they understand the long-range impact of that, it can be so powerful.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, speaking of data, so we just released our 2026 Health Trends report.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Yes.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL:  So a couple of trends that kind of jumped out in that study as we looked across our fully insured and self-funded book of business, a couple of things. As we think about where the spend is being driven by, we have catastrophic claims being driven, increasing by about 13%. We have pharmacy costs rising by about 11%, and now about 55% of all our pharmacy expenses driven by specialty medications. So you think about those big numbers and the rising cost pressure, how does that change the types of conversations you have with your team and how to respond to some of that?

STEPHANIE FEHR: It’s something that I think about all the time. And you were with me at the consumer forum when we talked to our customers about it, and it's on their minds as well. One of the things I think about is it's a double-edged sword in many ways. AI is playing a big role in pharma right now and making sure that they can produce drugs faster and faster, which is really great for meeting the needs of somebody who's suffering from an illness. But even within that, there are choices and ways we can help people be thoughtful about how they engage in Rx, medications, care. So I think this whole notion of education, Craig, is really important. And it's funny, when I joined United, I thought I knew a lot about benefits just because I was in HR. I knew a fraction of what I know now after nine years. And I think it informs my decisions for myself, but also our decisions for our own employees. And even understanding how health care works, when I'm in a moment, in a health care moment, I make a decision that's probably different than the average citizen who's not in health care. And I'll give you an example. I had a cyst in my hand. My orthopedic doctor happened to be working at the hospital that day. So I went in to see him and he said, oh, Stephanie, I want to do an MRI on this. He said, just go downstairs and do an MRI. Well, you and I both know that in a hospital setting, it's probably far more expensive. And I said, I think I'm going to go down to the MRI center and make an appointment. And he goes, oh, I forget you work for UnitedHealthcare. But it shouldn't be that way. It should be just everyone should be educated around those decisions so they can impact the cost of care.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: But it's hard to change. I've had personal experience like that as well. Even I know the data, I know the ins and outs of site of care makes a big difference on cost, but in the moment, to pause and shop and to consider that.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Exactly.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: It's just not how naturally health care has worked historically. It's a big shift.

[On-screen text: Stephanie Fehr, Chief People Officer, UnitedHealthcare]

STEPHANIE FEHR: It's a huge shift. And that's one aspect of health care that is a bit of a commodity. So you know that you can access the same quality at a different site. There are other decisions that are obviously more meaningful, but that one for me was one of those moments where I thought, my education has really helped me in this moment.

[On-screen text: Craig Kurtzweil, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual]

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, I know over the past few years, especially maybe the past decade or so, data has become more available. The role of the benefits leaders and HR teams has changed into dealing with data and how do you how do you make sense of data? There's tons of data, mountains of data that are out.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Mountains. Yeah.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: How do you make sense of that? How do you translate that data into insights and strategy within the benefits team?

STEPHANIE FEHR: Well, first of all, just I want to commend you. I have watched you in action many times, and you tell a story that's really meaningful and compelling, but it's relevant to somebody's life experience. So that's really important to make it relevant. And when I think about how we make decisions and how we look at data from a benefits perspective, being a chief people officer, there are a lot of chief people officers who don't get very involved in benefit selections. I think that's changing. Because the way—and I'll get to the answer in just a minute—but the way I think about benefits is a part of the employee value proposition, because it's a part, like we said at the beginning, this whole life experience. So when I talk about it, I talk about the five generations of workers. I talk about the different seasons of life. I look at the data around utilization, I look at behavioral change, and we're already making some changes around decisions we made a year ago based on the data that we have seen this year that will alter our benefits product selection next year. And it's based on utilization, but also efficacy.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Now, obviously I'm biased, but for employers out there that are struggling with that, how to translate data and insights, how can employers work with their carrier to do a better job of getting to those insights that can help drive strategy?

STEPHANIE FEHR: I think it's something that differentiates us a lot at UnitedHealthcare because we have so much data and we use that data to tell a story. And one of the things I've seen you do so beautifully is look at an employee population, an employer that we serve, and really tell a story about their employees. It not only informs their employee base, but it informs root cause and how they can actually create interventions, support processes, mechanisms to help their people become healthier. And that's what I applaud about kind of a payer. We have the ability to really inform how they're going to strategize and help their employees in the future.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Gone are the days of looking at populations holistically, diving into subpopulations, unique characteristics that need our help, pinpointing opportunities, more robust ROI on those opportunities. That's the next generation of analytics.

STEPHANIE FEHR: It is. It truly is. Yeah, agree.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Now, thinking about some of those scary health care trends that are out there, are there any trends in particular that are kind of keeping you up at night, that you're concerned about, that you're focused on?

STEPHANIE FEHR: There are a lot of them. I was just talking to our benefits team last week about this SDOH trend and really understanding it deeply. And a year ago we introduced two advocates that are really there just for those crisis moments. And what I love about what they're doing is they're not just focusing on health benefits. They're focusing on the whole ecosystem of a person's life, financial, caregiving. Right now, so many of us are in the sandwich generation. We're caring for our parents while raising our children. And even a benefit like wealthy is so important because it helps them understand resources that they can engage for caregiving. But to answer your question, I think there's something about understanding the needs and the acuity of those needs and really applying the right solution at the right time.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, Stephanie, also one of the unique roles that you play is not only do we find the data that's happening in your population, we come up with great solutions, but you then have to turn and present that data and make a case to the executive team around why that's important and funding and things like that. How do you take on that challenge?

STEPHANIE FEHR: It’s a great question. And we do have to prioritize because, as you said, health care is costly, and we want to make sure that we choose the products and services for our employees that matter the most. I think a great example of that would be our introduction to menopause support through Maven. When we introduced that, we had a lot of data that showed that when you go through that season of life, there are lots of challenges that people don't necessarily understand or acknowledge. In addition to that, every woman has a unique experience. So it really was important for us to identify how that would increase people's engagement, how they would feel more supported, how they would be more educated around that period of time. And ironically, one of the stats is when people go through menopause, typically, when women go through menopause, they are at the peak of their career. So you really want them to enjoy a feeling of health and wellness. And so this has been, ironically, the most popular enrollment of any other products, so we enrolled more people more quickly than any other product. And it just illustrates the need. And the executive team, I think, saw that and it validated their decision. But it really is about employee wellness at the end of the day.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Well, as you as you think about offering best in class benefits experience, are there a couple of words that come to mind when you think about what that experience should look like?

STEPHANIE FEHR: So many. When I think about a consumer experience, a great consumer experience where you go back because not the price, but the consumer experience, I think transparency, integrity, choice is huge. And I immediately think of Surest because Surest has come a long way since we kind of introduced it. And I remember when we introduced it, people thought, oh, this is going to be a product for a very few people who want to take the risk. But what it's turned out to be is a tool to educate people around all their choices, transparency into price, transparency into providers in their area. And all of a sudden, people are making decisions that they otherwise wouldn't have made because they were kind of behind a curtain. So I think about the future of health care as being one of deep understanding with transparency and choice. And I think that will probably meet people where they are because everybody, like you said, is very individual.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: And very complicated system.

STEPHANIE FEHR: So complicated.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: That’s where when you think about AI making a difference in this space, taking a super complicated system with lots of data, perfect for AI to simplify some things. How do you view AI making a difference as far as your benefit strategy?

STEPHANIE FEHR: Well, I'm excited about it. I think some people are a little nervous about it, but I don't think you'll ever see the human taken out of the system, because human beings need human beings to help them through lots of navigation experiences, but also those acute situations where they actually need to talk to a human being. But what I love about it is it will create access to data and trends more quickly than we've ever had before. And I'll be honest, there are times when I just don't want to talk to a human being because I'm in a hurry. It will afford people that access and the ability to do what I would just call rote tasks in a way that's super-fast and super accurate. And we can also do the things that require humans much more often, much more thoughtfully, take more time with people, be better listeners. So I think it will actually improve the consumer experience over time.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: As you think about in the analytics space, AI is just going to make a huge difference. So all the cuts and slices we do in your population to figure out those unique populations that need our help, now AI can help me get to those insights way quicker so I can spend more of my time focused on what do we do about it.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Exactly.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: What can make a difference there that’s really going to change the landscape.

STEPHANIE FEHR: And more quickly, for sure.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: And AI might be the answer to this as well. But as you look into the future, there's lots of different solutions and strategies that are out there. Is there one particular that you're kind of looking forward to that’s really going to change the landscape of employee benefits?

STEPHANIE FEHR: It’s funny, this is something that I think we talk a lot about, and I don't think we've quite cracked the nut, but I think we're getting better at it, and that's educating the consumer. And like you said, health care is so complicated and I'm not sure it should be. I think it should be much more simple and just like a simple product that you would use in your everyday life. So I'm hoping that we can get to a point where the health care system is more simple and AI can help us do that. But I also think there's an opportunity to make sure that everybody who's consuming health care can really understand how it works and make more educated decisions.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: It's so hard to understand cost and understand quality.

STEPHANIE FEHR: So hard.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Different than any other industry in the world.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Totally agree.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: So as you think about trends in the health care system, what's one trend that you think deserves much more of your attention today? And given there's only so much capacity for focus, what's another area that you think maybe you think is going to start to go away or doesn't need as much attention anymore?

STEPHANIE FEHR: This is probably going to move away from benefits, but I think it's something that every industry is going to have to get better at, and that's this notion of dealing with ambiguity and being agile. And I will tell you, when I first started in HR, there was a huge emphasis on degrees. There was a huge emphasis on technical acumen, and those are important things, but I think more and more, we have to be continuous learners and really be comfortable in the sea of ambiguity, making decisions based on the data that we have and probably innovating around the data that we don't have and experimenting a bit more. And I think that will create just a better experience for everybody.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: Great. Well, let's end on a fun one. So as you think about trends, what's a trend in your personal life that you're happy to be adopting? And maybe what's another trend that you're happy to see go away?

STEPHANIE FEHR: That's so funny. So I am an empty nester. My husband and I are empty nesters. And one of the things that we are doing is digital free days, which is so hard. And I will tell you, I'm starting to play the piano again. I'm starting to cook a bit more. And what's happening to me personally is I feel very enriched and even healthier, actually. So I think there's something about just stepping away and just doing things that are analog, that don't require a digital platform to do. So that's exciting. Moving away from, for me, I just, I think it's really important that we slow down and get to know each other again, because I think we have been so, probably isolated since COVID. And I really am trying to help my family engage a bit differently.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: That's great. I personally can't cook without my phone, so I don't know how you do that.

STEPHANIE FEHR: I don't do it well.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: So I appreciate that. I have to look up how many ounces, and anyway.

STEPHANIE FEHR: Craig, there are a lot of sideways glances at my phone.

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: We'll see how that would turn out. It'd be a wreck in my house. Thank you, Stephanie, so much. I know your time is very valuable, so thank you for spending a little bit of time talking with us today.

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STEPHANIE FEHR: Thanks, Craig. It was my pleasure. Thank you.

[Craig Kurtzweil speaking on screen]

CRAIG KURTZWEIL: And thank you for joining us today on Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare.

[On-screen text: Health Trend Talks with UnitedHealthcare]

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I'm Craig Kurzweil, and we'll see you next time.

[On-screen text: Avery is an AI companion that uses generative artificial intelligence to provide general information and educational assistance. Avery’s responses may be incomplete or inaccurate and should not be relied upon as error-free. Averay is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, professional advice, a benefit determination, a guarantee of coverage, a referral, or an authorization for health care services. Avery is not a substitute for the advice or judgement of your health care provider or other qualified professionals. Coverage and benefits are subject to the terms, conditions, limitations, and exclusions of your applicable health plan. Employee benefits including group health plan benefits may be taxable benefits unless they fit into specific exception categories. Please consult with your tax specialist to determine taxability of these offerings. Insurance coverage provided by or through UnitedHealthcare Insurance Company or its affiliates. Administrative services provided by United HealthCare Services, Inc. or their affiliates. B2B EI26646750 7/26 ©2026 United HealthCare Services, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 26-22449908]