Employer & Broker Solutions · Practice 02
Cut the cost. Keep the people.
Health benefits are the second-largest line on most payrolls and the least examined. We find out-of-the-box solutions for what is actually being paid, redesign what is being bought, and give brokers a specialist bench to call on.
Position
Most employers are not overpaying for coverage. They are overpaying for the way the plan is built.
This practice exists because our founder spent a decade inside it — first as a banker underwriting employer balance sheets, then building and running the health and benefits program at a national financial institution. The work is unglamorous and specific: find where the plan design, the funding structure, and the vendor contracts are quietly costing more than they should, and fix the structure — not just the invoice.
We do carry insurance products of our own, but that is not the point of entry. We do not replace your broker — we complement them, bringing tried-and-true solutions that both the broker and the employer group can rally behind. We sit on the same side of the table as you and your client — reading the plan design, the pharmacy contract, the stop-loss treaty, and the administrative agreement — and we name what we find in writing. Where a broker is doing good work, we make them look better; where the market has moved faster than the plan design has, we say that too.
The test never changes: does it reach the bottom line, and do the employees feel it? A saving that quietly degrades the team is not a saving. A perk that never reaches the income statement is not a strategy.
Cost control & solutions
Plan design & funding strategy
Level-funded and self-funded transitions, stop-loss structuring and marketing, contribution and tier design, Section 125 architecture, and the modeling that shows what each change actually costs.
Alternative funding & captive strategies
Group captive participation, direct primary care integration, and creative risk-sharing arrangements that convert volatile claims exposure into a plan cost the employer can actually forecast.
Pharmacy & PBM strategy
Contract and rebate review, specialty carve-outs, formulary and international sourcing options, and transparent pass-through arrangements — usually the single largest line in the plan worth renegotiating.
Network, repricing & TPA
Reference-based pricing and repricing strategy, direct-contract and center-of-excellence arrangements, TPA selection and integration, and administrative agreements read line by line.
Renewal & market strategy
Renewal timeline management, RFP design, and marketing to alternative carriers, reference-based platforms, and MEWAs so brokers and carriers compete on what is actually being quoted.
Compliance & fiduciary posture
Transparency-rule and CAA obligations, fee disclosure, and the documentation a plan sponsor needs to demonstrate it acted prudently — a live exposure most employers have not addressed.
For brokers & consultants
We are not a competing quote. We are the bench you call when a client’s needs outgrow one agency’s bandwidth.
Group captives, a real pharmacy renegotiation, a self-funding transition — these take specialist hours most books of business cannot justify staffing in-house. You stay broker of record on every file; we work it under your name.
Trusted partner
Melissa Pell
President & Founder, Health Strategy Advisors
Chattanooga, Tennessee
“Healthcare does not have to be a necessary evil. With the right strategy, it can be an asset.”
Melissa leads employer and consumer-directed health strategy for Axiom X clients. She spent more than two decades at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee — beginning in claims and finishing as Product Manager for consumer-directed health products — and then served as SVP, Health & Benefits Strategy & Operations Manager at Pinnacle Financial Partners. In 2026 she founded Health Strategy Advisors to do the work the way she believes it should be done.
That history is the reason we bring her in. Melissa has sat on the carrier side, the bank side, and now the advisor side of the same table. She knows how a plan is actually priced, where the administrative friction lives, and which so-called innovations survive a second renewal.
Her firm’s work runs from strategic HSA planning and contribution design to alternative funding arrangements, direct primary care integration, and benefit designs built to lower spend without quietly shifting the cost onto employees. As she puts it, the aim is to uncover the opportunities traditional brokers often miss.
Adam and Melissa worked together in health and benefits at Pinnacle Financial Partners. This is not a directory listing — it is a partnership between two people who have already delivered for the same clients.
Health Strategy Advisors is an independent firm. Melissa is engaged directly by the client under her own agreement.
Engagement
A benefits program does not improve because someone found a better way to present it. It improves when someone has actually read the plan design, the pharmacy contract, and the stop-loss treaty — and will say plainly what each of them is costing.
Axiom X — Employer doctrine
- Retained advisory — ongoing plan oversight through renewal and beyond
- Project engagement — a single renewal, RFP, or plan-design review, fixed fee
- Performance-aligned — a reduced fee against measured savings
- Second opinion — one session on a decision already in motion
Enquiries
Send us last year’s claims and renewal.
Employers and brokers alike: share the census, the renewal, and the plan documents. We will come back with where the money is going and what can realistically be redesigned — before anyone signs anything.