Financial stress is one of the top drivers of employee burnout and disengagement — and healthcare out-of-pocket costs are quietly one of the biggest contributors to that stress. Most employers look at their comp and benefits package, benchmark it to the market, and move on. What they're missing is the gap between what the insurance covers and what their employees can actually afford to pay when they get to the doctor's office. Brian Whorley has spent the last six years building a solution to that gap — and as of January 1, 2025, it just became a national standard of care.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- What Paytient is and how it works — a fintech employee benefit offered by 6,000 employers that allows employees to self-pay their out-of-pocket healthcare expenses over time, without interest or fees, whether they're in a low-deductible or high-deductible health plan, and why employees who have access to Paytient consistently and voluntarily choose lower-cost plan designs — saving money for themselves and their employers
- Why the ability to pay for care directly changes how people get care — employees with financial certainty pick up prescriptions instead of leaving them unfilled, get preventative care instead of deferring it, and access earlier treatment that prevents more expensive interventions later — and why Brian frames this as moving from rationing care to rational consumption of care
- The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan and what it means for employer health plans — as of January 1, 2025, it is now a federal requirement that all Part D health plans give their 54 million members the option to pay out-of-pocket pharmaceutical expenses over time, and Paytient is powering nearly 40% of those participants — signaling that this model is becoming a standard of care across all health plan types
- Why Paytient's net promoter score is 90-plus — what the real-world member experience looks and feels like, why people who have Paytient as part of their health plan voluntarily stay on that plan year after year (demonstrably lower member churn), and why Brian describes the product not as a financial tool but as an emotional release for people in uncertain moments
- What the transition from hospital executive to startup founder actually looked like — the role of trust, humility, and high-velocity decision-making in building a company that scales, why Brian describes the CEO role in the early days as "Chief Evangelical Officer," and Paytient's three core values: lift others, live the mission, and light the way
About the guest: Brian Whorley is the founder and CEO of Paytient (paytient.com), a healthcare fintech company that 6,000 employers currently use to help employees self-pay for out-of-pocket medical expenses. Prior to founding Paytient in April 2018, Brian spent over a decade at Boone Health (formerly Boone Hospital Center), a 392-bed community hospital in Columbia, Missouri, and holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Missouri and a graduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
Chapter Markers:
- 00:00 — Why Brian Founded Paytient: The Gap Between Insurance and Affordability
- 04:51 — What Impact Is Paytient Having Across Industries and Why It's Changing Benefits
- 09:48 — Financial Stress, Employee Productivity & Why This Is an Employer Issue Too
- 13:44 — Employer Hesitations and Why Paytient Increases Plan Migration to HDHPs
- 18:10 — The Medicare Prescription Payment Plan: A New National Standard of Care (Jan 1, 2025)
- 26:01 — Market Hesitation and How Brian Has Navigated Creating a New Category
- 30:44 — Success Stories: What Members Are Actually Saying
- 37:04 — From Hospital Executive to Startup Founder: What Brian Learned
- 44:01 — Trust, High-Velocity Decision-Making & Scaling a Startup
- 47:51 — Paytient's Company Values: Lift Others, Live the Mission, Light the Way
If your benefits package is one of your largest P&L line items and you're not sure whether your HR systems are set up to evaluate and communicate it effectively to employees, the free HR Audit will show you where the gaps are: saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
🔍 Ready to find out what's really going on inside your business? Take the free Salt & Light HR Audit at saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit. In about 10 minutes, you'll get a clear picture of where your people operations stand — and exactly where to focus next. No fluff, no sales pitch. Just clarity.
Resources to keep building:
🎯 Take the free HR Audit — Score your HR systems in 5 minutes and see exactly where your gaps are. 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
🎙️ Listen to Don't Waste the Chaos — The podcast for small business owners building strong people operations. 👉 kerrimroberts.com/podcast
📖 Get The HR Easy Button — Kerri's book on building HR systems that actually work for small businesses. 👉 https://amzn.to/4cPyrFh
✉️ Subscribe to the newsletter — Weekly HR insights for founders, in your inbox every Monday. 👉 saltandlight.myflodesk.com/saltandlightadvisors
Need fractional HR support or want to talk about your benefits strategy? 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/contact
Ready to build foundational HR systems on your own? 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/hrfoundations
Connect with Kerri: 📷 Instagram: instagram.com/kerrimroberts 💼 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/kerrimroberts 🐎 Hippo Creek Farm on Instagram: instagram.com/hippocreekfarm
Episode-specific resources mentioned:
- Paytient — paytient.com (P-A-Y-T-I-E-N-T)
- Brian Whorley on LinkedIn — link in show notes
- TrustPilot — where Paytient members submit public reviews
- The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey — referenced by Kerri
Full show notes + transcript: https://kerrimroberts.com/dontwastethechaos/episode-33-paytient-solving-the-healthcare-affordability-crisis
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