953 Chelsea Ryckis: Reinventing Healthcare

Fee-Based Advising and the Truth Behind Employer Health Plans

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed, frustrated, or downright mystified by your company’s health care options, you’re not alone. Whether you’re a business owner, HR leader, or employee just trying to make sense of your benefits, it’s time to expose the “Big Lie” about employer healthcare plans and how to bring down costs.

Today we demystify the complex world of employer-sponsored health plans, unpack the misaligned incentives driving up healthcare costs, and learn how a new fee-based, fiduciary model for managing benefits is helping businesses—and their employees—take back control.

Chelsea Ryckis is the founder of Ethos Benefits, pioneering a revolutionary approach that effectively eliminates fraud, waste and abuse from employer healthcare plans while increasing savings for both employers and their employees. 

More often than not, entrepreneurial innovation is borne of adversity—and our personal efforts to overcome it. Chelsea Ryckis’ journey started on the softball fields of NCAA Division 1 when her plans for med school got derailed in an instant—she suffered a traumatic brain injury, followed by a bewildering, debt-ridden detour through the American health system. Even after returning to Canada for rehab, her U.S. medical bills still haunted her: “As a 22-year-old, unable to work…what do I do with this $11,000 bill?”

And then came more questions about healthcare—from financing (who pays, how, why?) to delivery (who decides when and where you get care?). Chelsea decided her mission was to fix the broken system—starting with employer-sponsored health insurance, which covers more than half of all Americans. Chelsea exposes what she calls the “Big Lie” about employer health insurance. She says most employers believe there’s nothing they can do to control their health care costs. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With Ethos Benefits, Chelsea has built a brokerage model, free from commissions and misaligned incentives, all to ensure transparency, fiduciary responsibility and lower costs. Ethos helps employers unbundle the four core components of a health plan (administrator, PBM, network, and stop-loss insurance) to reveal real costs and deliver real savings. Imagine saving $30,000/month on just one specialty drug—or paying $200 for an MRI instead of $10,000!

Ethos has helped companies eliminate waste, uncover malpractice, and cut costs by 20–40%, all while teaching employers how to use their data as a weapon for good. It’s why Chelsea was recently named Most Innovative Healthcare Consultant in the United States, and has an eye-opening documentary out in the world called, “It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Healthcare.” 

More about Chelsea Ryckis at www.ethoseffectpodcast.com

Create and share clips of your favorite moments of this or any other podcast episode on across social media via Podopolo, and join the conversation with Chelsea and me in the Wings episode comments section.

More about Chelsea at Ethos Benefits

https://ethosbenefits.com/

 

Chelsea Ryckis is the award-winning founder and president of Ethos Benefits, a firm dedicated to advancing fiduciary-driven health insurance strategies for employers nationwide to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse from employer healthcare plans while increasing savings for both employers and their employees. After suffering a traumatic brain injury as a Division 1 college athlete, Canadian-born Chelsea experienced the US healthcare system firsthand, inspiring her pioneering entrepreneurship in healthcare. Chelsea was awarded the industry’s most prestigious award, Advisor of the Year, by Benefits Pro in 2024. She has also been named the Most Innovative Healthcare Consultant in the United States for 2024. Chelsea is the co-host of the Ethos Effect Podcast with her husband Donovan and producer of the documentary “It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Healthcare.” 

Get the book, It’s Not Personal, it’s Just Healthcare

Listen to the Ethos Effect podcast

 

Get the Transcript HERE