Phyllis Merrill

Biography

Phyllis Merrill has been active in the health insurance administration arena for 30 years. She is the co-owner and CEO of MBA Benefit Administrators founded in 1987. MBA, as a Third Party Administrator (TPA) has experience in the administration of all types of benefit plans with an emphasis on partially self-funded group health
insurance plans and serves a wide variety of businesses and organizations. MBA’s unique expertise is the implementation of multiple, high-powered cost containment strategies with proven track records of success. These strategies go far beyond the usual self-funding plan and wellness program. Effective plan design, real long-term savings and superior customer service means clients of MBA stay around. The loyalty/ persistency rate for MBA clients is more than a decade. (www.mbaadministrators.com)
In 1992 Phyllis founded Critique, a medical management, cost containment and patient advocacy service. Critique brings a level of transparency to patient care that has shown to substantially reduce costs of healthcare for participating organizations and their employees. Critique’s nurse coaches’ interactions with employees who are faced with chronic health challenges is a highly-effective health promotion approach. Engaging health issues early reduces and prevents costly hospital care down the road. (www. critiqueur.com)
The Open SolutionTM was developed by Phyllis in 2012. The Open SolutionTM is the synthesis of multiple cost-containment strategies and was developed specifically to serve organizations with 100 to 5000 employees. She leads an experienced team, which provides medical plan administration, medical case management and cost- containment specialists. (www.theopensolution.com)
Phyllis is driven and energetic and brings a different type of intelligence to the challenges of health care insurance. She is passionate about bringing cost transparency to the payment of medical claims, empowering organizations and consumers to take control of their medical care, paying only fair and reasonable prices.
Her long history in the health plan administration world has allowed her to clearly identify the flaws, abuses and the egregious pricing tactics of hospitals and other providers. She is a strong and passionate advocate for bringing transparency to business owners and reducing employee benefit costs.
Phyllis has spoken to thousands of healthcare and insurance professionals in an educational capacity and has been interviewed on major media outlets. She has introduced and guided hundreds of company founders, CEOs, CFOs and HR directors to the benefits and rewards of a properly structured health benefit plan. She is a leading advocate of the various cost-containment strategies now available to organizations to gain control of their healthcare dollars and reduce the cost of providing benefits to their employees.