Self-insured employers negotiate a dizzyingly complex health care benefits landscape these days – managing inflation, escalating costs and point solution fatigue while keeping their employees healthy and happy with offerings tailored to their personal health journeys. Faced with tough decisions and trade-offs, employers are leaning more than ever on benefits consultants for trusted advice to help them manage the myriad choices available and plot a strategic course for their employee health care benefits.

Against this backdrop, we recently sponsored a first-of-its-kind survey to understand the mindset and direction of today's health and benefits consultants. Taken as a whole, the key findings of the Benefit Consultant Sentiment Index (The Index) offer a valuable consultant lens on trends and a glimpse of the near future of employer-based healthcare benefits.

Consolidation under a navigation solution is essential and inevitable.

There's no question that employers are overloaded and fatigued by point solution management. Over the past three to five years, the average employer brought on 13-17 digital health solutions, only to find that most are underutilized and account for little-to-no improvement in cost or health outcomes. The answer, 63% of consultants reported, is the inevitable consolidation of digital health point solutions under a navigation provider.