Be the Catalyst for Better Healthcare
By Curt Kubiak is the President and CEO
I’ve been traveling more recently to visit my sons and, as usual, planned to use the same park-and-ride service I’ve relied on in the past. The company is convenient, familiar, and I know exactly what to expect. But when I went to reserve my spot, I noticed their prices had increased significantly.
I was made aware that there were less expensive alternatives and that finding them would only take a little research. Yet my first instinct was to stay with the company I already knew. The prospect of comparing options and trying something new felt like more effort than it was worth. Even though I understood the facts behind making a change, I was reluctant to do it.
Eventually, I realized that the cost of staying with the status quo had become greater than the cost of exploring a better option. That simple experience reminded me of a challenge we face throughout healthcare. If changing a parking service feels difficult, even when the savings are obvious, how can we expect people to make smarter decisions while navigating a complex healthcare system?
Facts alone haven’t changed the trajectory of healthcare. We have decades of data showing healthcare costs rising, now faster than wages, yet the system keeps moving in the same direction. Not because people don’t care, but because change is fragmented, and often feels abstract until it’s personal. And by the time it affects us directly, the opportunity to prevent the problem may already have passed.
I previously wrote about Jonah Berger’s book The Catalyst its central insight: meaningful change doesn’t happen by pushing harder; it happens by removing the barriers that stand in the way. In healthcare, those barriers exist everywhere – in how care is delivered, purchased, administered, and experienced.
And because the system is interconnected, lasting progress depends on all stakeholders working together to reduce friction and align around shared goals.
Berger’s REDUCE framework offers a practical lens for how stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem can act as a catalyst for change, by easing resistance, simplifying choices, and making high-value healthcare the obvious path forward.
1. People Don’t Like Being Told What to Do
Top-down change rarely works in healthcare. Whether it’s benefit plan design, care delivery, or utilization management, people resist decisions that feel imposed on them.
Incentives tied to high-value care, care navigation, or preventive services work best when all parties see themselves as partners, not targets of a mandate.
2. Make the Better Choice the Easy Choice
Healthcare is full of inertia. Providers stay with legacy processes, employees return to familiar care settings, and purchasers renew arrangements that feel “good enough.”
Stakeholders can counter this by redesigning the default option. When high-quality, cost-effective care becomes the path of least resistance, behavior can change naturally.
3. Give People Information When They Need It
Healthcare decisions often feel abstract for patients until the point of care, and sometimes even until the bill arrives. Bridging that distance requires clarity and relevance.
For example, when you go to the grocery store, you respond to information at the moment you’re making a purchase. You wouldn’t remember a sale on chips that was advertised months earlier. Healthcare decisions work much the same way. Employees may receive valuable information during open enrollment, but by the time they need care, that information is often forgotten. To influence behavior, guidance, and incentives need to be available when decisions are actually being made.
4. Take the Guesswork Out of It
Uncertainty breeds avoidance. When costs are unpredictable and coverage is confusing, people default to the status quo. They’ll continue to do what they’ve always done.
Consistent education around transparency of pricing, benefits, quality metrics, and incentives reduces fear and builds confidence. When everyone understands the rules of the road, it is easier to make smarter decisions.
5. Show That it Works
People are more willing to change when they see proof that change works. We all can relate to someone we know and trust having had a positive experience.
By sharing data, outcomes, and real-world examples of what works, stakeholders make value visible. Shared evidence will become one of the most powerful motivators for sustained change.
Bending the Medical Cost Trend Together
Like my experience with parking, you’ve probably encountered a similar experience in your life. Change is hard, and many of us choose familiar options even when potentially better alternatives exist. Influencing change is even harder, but with intentional efforts it’s possible, even in healthcare.
No single stakeholder can fix healthcare alone. But together, we can remove barriers one at a time.
By aligning incentives, improving default options, and sharing accountability, we can bend the medical cost trend while improving access and outcomes. Over time, this shift will redirect resources away from avoidable costs and toward prevention.
Together we can build a system that rewards value over volume, a system where affordable, high-value healthcare is accessible to everyone.
Have you had a positive experience with an alternative healthcare solution? Reach out at OnWisconsinHealthcare@the-alliance.org.
Curt Kubiak is the President and CEO of The Alliance, a non-for-profit cooperative that helps employers save money on their healthcare spend. After an early career in the manufacturing sector, Kubiak has spent nearly two decades as an executive in the healthcare industry in Wisconsin.
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