Encore! EP372: Step One for Employers and Unions—Get Your Data, With Cora Opsahl

"You cannot make smart … decisions and be a fiduciary of a fund without having data," as Cora Opsahl, director of the 32BJ Health Fund, puts it. Stacey Richter is re-airing this conversation because it's the missing prerequisite behind nearly everything discussed on this show lately — the recent episodes with Andreas Mang (EP419), Dan Mendelson (Encore EP385), and Mark Cuban and Ferrin Williams (EP418) all assume an employer actually has the data to act on. 32BJ Health Fund, a self-funded plan covering 200,000 union members (doormen, maintenance workers, security, cleaners, and more across 11 states), demanded its data from every vendor and used it to remove an overpriced hospital system from its network — saving $35 million and funding the union's biggest wage increase in years.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✅ How 32BJ Health Fund got 100% of its vendors to hand over data, and why Cora Opsahl treats a vendor's reluctance to share data as itself a red flag

✅ How 32BJ used its data to remove an overpriced hospital system from its network, saving $35 million — enough to fund the union's biggest wage increase in years plus a premium holiday for employers

✅ Why validating vendor cost estimates with your own data almost always tells a different story than what the vendor projected, and why that matters before adding any new benefit or program

✅ Why siloing pharmacy and medical data lets one side claim savings while quietly shifting costs to the other — the "squeezing the balloon" problem — and why only fund-level data can catch it

✅ The three things data ultimately buys a self-insured employer or union: cutting wasteful spending and catching fraud, making validated (not guessed-at) benefit decisions, and forecasting trends far enough ahead to protect financial solvency

WHY THIS MATTERS

Every strategy discussed on this show for improving employer and union health benefits — auditing vendors, redesigning benefits, holding hospitals accountable — depends on first having the data to know what's actually happening inside the plan. 32BJ's $35 million hospital-network decision wasn't a hunch; it was a direct result of demanding and using data most funds never bother to collect. Employers and unions that skip this step aren't just leaving savings on the table — per Cora Opsahl, they risk becoming imprudent fiduciaries, a fact class action attorneys are increasingly aware of.

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

EP285 with Dawn Cornelis: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

EP358 with Wayne Jenkins, MD: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Other Apps

=== LINKS ===

🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

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00:00 Introduction

06:53 How much data does 32BJ Health Fund have, where do they get it, and how do they use it?

08:52 How did 32BJ Health Fund successfully demand their data from 100% of their vendors?

09:42 "We feel it's really important that we own this information ourselves."

10:05 "It always concerns me—if a vendor doesn't want to give you the information, what are they hiding?"

10:32 "It's not just getting the data; it's then using the data."

13:41 "Without data, you're really just taking a guess; and guesses are never gonna get you where you need to go."

15:19 EP285 with Dawn Cornelis.

15:40 Is the cost of creating a data analytics team worth the cost savings of those data discoveries?

19:03 "The use of data has really built our knowledge."

20:52 "It's really important to us that as we make benefit decisions, we're doing it smartly."

25:27 EP358 with Wayne Jenkins, MD.

25:38 How is 32BJ Health Fund making their data knowledge actionable?

28:11 "If we can figure out how to make telehealth accessible … there may be an opportunity for telehealth … to upset some of these … monopoly systems or low-choice options."

30:22 "It's really easy to think that we can solve this problem through benefit design … but in the end … it's the price."