

Strategic Buyers Are Already Showing Us What They Value
One of the clearest ways to understand what buyers value is to look at what they are already doing. (Stay tuned for the rest of the strategy maps in the coming weeks. Follow Akros on LinkedIn to stay up to date!) When you review recent strategy maps across major payers including CVS/Aetna, Cigna/Evernorth, Humana, UnitedHealthcare/Optum, and Molina, a pattern starts to emerge. These organizations are not simply collecting vendors. Across the payer landscape, the same themes s


How U.S. Health Plans Outsourced Their Core and What It Means for the Future of Payers
I was walking the exhibit floor at Becker’s, weaving through the noise of bright booths and polished sales pitches, when something unusual stopped me. A vendor was promoting a platform designed to help health plans manage product and benefit data. Automation, compliance support, efficiency gains. Nothing surprising on the surface. Then the realization landed with a kind of somber force. If a payer cannot manage its own product and benefit data (i.e. the foundational function





