GLP-1s Broke Employer Budgets. Here's What Comes Next With Ed Liebowitz of Personify Health

If you wait for the claim, you've already lost. Ed Liebowitz, President and General Manager of Well-being at Personify Health, joins Care Shift to break down why employer health has to move before the encounter, what CFOs actually want from wellness vendors now, and how GLP-1s are forcing employers to build real clinical programs for the first time.

Personify Health was formed by the merger of Virgin Pulse and HealthComp and serves 25 million members across 7,500 companies. Before Personify, Ed spent more than a decade building digital health businesses: he launched the Mayo Clinic Diet at Everyday Health, led digital diabetes at BD, served as Chief Product Officer at HealthReveal, and was EVP and Chief Strategy Officer at Solera Health. We get into the Virgin Pulse and HealthComp merger, how a predictive pilot got 40% of high-risk employees to enroll in an MSK program, where AI is actually moving KPIs, and which employer health platforms will still be standing in five years.

If you're a founder selling to employers, health plans, or brokers, this one is for you.

CHAPTERS 00:00 Intro 01:30 Why Ed left finance for digital health 03:05 Lessons from Everyday Health, HealthReveal, and BD 05:06 Is corporate wellness just a perk? 06:51 The ROI metrics CFOs care about now 08:29 How engagement starts: HRAs and predictive risk 09:38 Employers vs. health plans: different paths to ROI 10:49 The white space for founders in employer health 12:27 Why waiting for claims data means you've already lost 14:33 Reaching beyond healthy members: the MSK pilot 17:42 How to avoid bias in personalization 19:40 Earning trust with member health data 20:55 Personal wellness plans and meeting people where they are 23:52 The Virgin Pulse and HealthComp merger 25:16 How owning the TPA changes wellbeing (a GLP-1 example) 26:37 Lessons from post-merger integration 28:32 What evidence closes the deal with CFOs 30:12 Network contracting and Surest 31:49 How benefits consultants evaluate vendors 33:08 GLP-1s and employer budgets 36:27 Building product as a patient 38:15 What's changing in longitudinal care 39:20 The conditions driving employer spend 40:49 Where AI is moving KPIs today 42:18 AI governance and member trust 43:21 Why Personify vs. ChatGPT and Anthropic 45:25 AI agents and benefits navigation 46:13 Who wins employer health consolidation 47:39 The North Star metric for the category 48:07 Rapid fire

LISTEN ON Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6JghxsuNbQ7hWIHuLjaoJz Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1858302821

ABOUT CARE SHIFT Care Shift is a podcast featuring conversations with the founders, operators, and investors reshaping healthcare. Hosted by Sathvik Bilakanti.