S03E07: The Disruptive Light with Christy Vago

Cristy Gupton and Christy Vago discuss the crisis of medical debt in America and what employers can do to help protect employees and their health plan assets with new attention being focused on an innovation that dates all the way back to the passing of the Affordable Care Act.

Show Notes

Are hospitals overcharging you? Are you buried under a pile of bills you don’t understand? Do you need a helping hand? Help is on the way.

Christy Vago serves as Vice President of Business Development at Upland Advocacy. She is a dynamic, accomplished self-insurance leader with a successful track record of driving bottom line growth in new business revenue. Christy leads the effort of helping employers understand how this new benefit can support their workforce in ways few have seen yet while also alleviating unnecessary claims for hospital care that should have been delivered at no cost to the patient.

Healthcare professional and host, Cristy Gupton, interviews Christy Vago about the current healthcare crisis in the United States. They discuss common healthcare debts, along with ways to get funding and avoid health debt.

Learn more about the healthcare industry by following the Healthcare Solutions Podcast. Need healthcare consultation, retirement strategizing, wellness consultation, or benefits enrollment? Custom Benefits Solutions has your back.

Timecodes

[00:00:00] Intro

[00:03:50] Roots of Healthcare

[00:06:30] Upland Advocacy

[00:10:00] 501R Mandate Summary

[00:17:00] DisruptHR

[00:14:15] Powerful Solutions

[00:21:06] Sandra’s Story

[00:25:00] Closing

[00:28:03] Outro

Christy Vago

Our Guest

Christy Vago became Vice President of Business for Upland Advocacy in January of 2023. Her goal is to change the way employees utilize our healthcare system. She wants to make a difference in their health and also save them money. The added benefit to employers should be obvious. When your employees are free from the burden of medical debt, they can focus on their jobs and keeping your organization humming. Who doesn’t want that?

Vago believes it is her mission to challenge the mindset of how things have always been done and build for a better tomorrow. The current status quo needs to be shaken up. Employees experiencing medical debt are hurting. Upland Advocacy is here to help.

Christy Vago describes herself as a New Business Growth Driver, Efficiency Expert, and Relationship Influencer. We think she’s a special kind of awesome!

Cristy Gupton

Your Host

Cristy Gupton is an employee benefits advisor and President of Custom Benefits Solutions. Cristy has been part of the employee benefits industry since 1998 and has been named to Employee Benefits Advisor Magazine’s Top 20 Women in Benefits Advising in both 2018 and 2020. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree in Health Benefits Design and Health Informatics from University of Lynchburg.

Cristy belongs to an elite group of benefits advisors called Health Rosetta and another similar group called Mitigate Partners. Health Rosetta advisors commit to transparency in all their business endeavors, guiding and teaching employers and employees about health plan design and accessing the highest quality healthcare at the lowest possible cost. Cristy is a sought-after speaker on healthcare cost/quality issues and is a national thought-leader and expert on Direct Primary Care; specifically, how DPC doctors’ memberships can be embedded into employer-sponsored health plans, lowering costs, and improving the patient experience. Cristy has written articles for BenefitsPro Magazine and Physician Outlook Magazine. She leads the NC/SC Chapter of the Free Market Medical Association and the DisruptHR Chapters in Asheville, NC and Wilmington, NC. Cristy also holds a designation called “Global Financial Steward” from the Center for Board Certified Fiduciaries at Wake Forest University. The GFS designation makes her uniquely qualified to help ERISA plan fiduciaries perform that duty to the best of their ability.