Rising healthcare costs crushing your budget? You’re not alone. In our recent webinar, the AE Perkins family of companies, Ameriflex, Accresa, and Workforce Go, revealed how three innovations are helping employers slash costs while actually improving employee benefits. Here’s what you need to know.
ICHRA: Take Back Control from Group Plan Chaos
The Problem: One Ameriflex client faced a 97% premium increase on their group health plan. Yes, you read that right, 97%.
The Solution: Chris Estep, VP of Sales for Ameriflex, explained how Individual Coverage Health Reimbursement Arrangements (ICHRAs) flip the script. Instead of absorbing whatever premium increase insurers demand, employers set a monthly allowance that fits their budget. Employees then choose individual plans that actually work for their families.
“The employer comes up with the allowance that fits their budget and allows the employees to pick a plan that fits their life,” Estep explained. “It’s a huge change in this dynamic.”
Why Ameriflex’s Approach Wins: Their TAAP (The Ameriflex Alternative Plan) bundle includes everything competitors ignore. COBRA services, compliance documents including a fiduciary guide, and federal notices at no extra cost. Plus, employees get 24/7 concierge care navigation to find providers and compare costs.
The results speak for themselves: 98% client retention and a Net Promoter Score four times the industry average.
Key stat: 86% of ICHRA growth in 2025 came from employers who previously offered no health benefits. Proof this model makes coverage affordable for companies priced out of traditional plans.
DPC: Your Doctor, Without the Insurance Runaround
The Concept: Direct Primary Care works like a gym membership for healthcare. Pay a flat monthly fee, get unlimited primary care. No copays, no surprise bills, no insurance claims for everyday health needs.
Cyndi Morales, VP of Accresa, put it simply: “You wouldn’t use your car insurance to pay for an oil change.” Save insurance for catastrophic events; use DPC for the care that keeps you healthy.
The Game-Changer: While employers could always fund DPC through FSAs or HRAs, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed in July 2025 changed everything. DPC memberships are now HSA-eligible expenses starting January 1, 2026.
Why does this matter? HSAs were previously limited to high-deductible health plans. But the same legislation expanded HSA eligibility to bronze and catastrophic plans. Now you can pair affordable catastrophic coverage with accessible primary care, and fund both tax-free through an HSA.
“As of one-one, DPC memberships are also now an HSA eligible expense,” Morales explained. “It expands this principle of you use your insurance for catastrophic coverage, and then you fill in the gaps, and you supplement it with good, reasonable, cost-contained access to primary care.”
The Impact: Employers implementing DPC see 10-20% reductions in overall health spending, primarily by preventing expensive ER visits. When employees can text their doctor on Saturday night or get same-day appointments, they don’t end up in emergency rooms for problems primary care could handle.
AI: The Transformation Coming to HR and Payroll
The Reality Check: Mary Sue McClintock from Workforce Go opened with sobering stats:
- 92% of organizations plan to increase AI investments
- Only 1% consider themselves “AI-mature”
- 70% of HR work is still administrative
- 56% of HR processes rely on manual workflows
Translation? Massive opportunity ahead to automate busywork and focus on strategy.
What AI Will Change:
- Automate repetitive tasks that waste time today
- Analyze data to spot trends humans miss
- Ensure compliance and flag deadline risks
- Personalize employee experiences
- Alert managers when employees need attention (no vacation in 6 months? Excessive overtime?)
What AI Can’t Replace: “It’s not good at being a human,” McClintock emphasized. “It is not a replacement for humans. It’s not creative. It’s not ethical. It doesn’t have emotion or empathy.”
McClintock’s Strategic Advice: Start small with one friction point, map your current process, plan how technology could help, iterate and refine, then scale what works. “It’s not about replacing people. It’s giving them leverage.”
WorkforceGo’s Position: As a comprehensive human capital management platform handling everything from recruitment to retirement. Payroll, time and labor, HR administration, Workforce Go is positioning clients for the AI transformation ahead. Their focus is on building solutions that will be “AI ready for today, as well as AI ready for the future,” ensuring clients can adopt emerging capabilities as the technology matures.
Time to Act
Group plan premiums are becoming unsustainable. Employees expect modern, flexible benefits. And technology is fundamentally reshaping workforce management, whether organizations are ready or not.
2026 represents a critical inflection point. Companies exploring ICHRA now, implementing DPC to leverage new HSA eligibility, and building HR technology infrastructure that can evolve with AI are positioning themselves to control costs while genuinely improving employee satisfaction.
Meanwhile, organizations waiting on the sidelines, hoping the traditional benefits model will somehow stabilize, are watching competitors pull further ahead every quarter.
Ready to explore these solutions and more? The AE Perkins family of companies offers integrated expertise spanning consumer-driven healthcare (Ameriflex), direct primary care enrollment (Accresa), and comprehensive workforce management (Workforce Go).