Cancer, Chaos, and ICHRA: A Personal Story

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for something I never expected. My ICHRA kept me standing while cancer re-entered my life.

I know that sounds self-serving as the CEO of an ICHRA company. But hear me out.

A few months ago, I was visiting clients on the East Coast. Between meetings, I got a call from my partner.

“The doctors said my cancer’s back. And it’s spread.”

That moment kicked off a frantic series of events. The doctors’ consults, the lab tests and scans, and a scramble to figure out what exactly we were dealing with. The emotional shock was immediate. The administrative whirlwind followed right behind.

Once we had a care plan in place, the ping-pong started.

The hospital told us, “We’re waiting on the pre-authorization from the insurer.”

The insurer said, “We’re waiting on the provider.”

Meanwhile, Stanford gave us a “generous” cash-pay quote of $41,000.

All this hit at the start of Q4, right as Open Enrollment season began for Venteur. It is already our busiest and most stressful time of year. And suddenly, I found myself with expanded responsibilities as a caregiver. Like many caregivers, I was facing an incredible amount of stress. I also needed to operate at peak performance.

I tried to convince myself I was fine. I needed to be OK.

But quietly, I was confronting a different truth. I wasn’t. The stress was physically manifesting.

That’s where my ICHRA got me through all of this.

Venteur offers ICHRA to all of our employees. It includes a Health Wallet, which allows us to pocket the difference between our employee contribution amount and the price we actually pay for the individual plans we each select. The funds can be used to pay for approved medical expenses that are not covered by my plan.

We allow these funds to accrue monthly and roll over to subsequent years. Over the last four years, I’ve meticulously built a sizable Health Wallet in my ICHRA to save for a rainy day. And now the rain had arrived, and I cracked that thing open. That pool of funds became my lifeline. 

I used my Health Wallet to get ahead of the stress on things like a new gym membership, massage, and therapy. My Health Wallet also covered my partner’s cancer surgery (he’s on our ICHRA).

Five years ago, we started Venteur, and it had a very personal origin story. We saw up front that being able to choose and be deliberate about your health benefits can save your family member's life.

I continue to live this in the most personal ways. I see just how much we have to gain by rebuilding health insurance from the ground up.

Once we broaden the definition of healthcare, two things happen.

First, we expand the definition beyond merely sick care. We finally acknowledge the unseen, unclaimed, but absolutely critical parts of keeping a human afloat, especially caregivers, whose unpaid labor carries enormous emotional and physical cost. We all know preventive healthcare matters, but when time and money are scarce, you skip it. Flexible benefits like ICHRAs give people the chance to invest in the blind spots, the quiet, personal parts of care that keep them steady and healthy but never show up on an insurance claim.

Second, we bolster American business. Companies perform only as well as their people, and people can’t show up fully when stress, distraction, or caregiving demands pull them apart. Productivity suffers, and so does the bottom line. ICHRAs give employees the autonomy and flexibility to address the parts of their health they may want to hide or feel ashamed to discuss. These are often the very things that shape how we work. And ICHRAs are among the reasons we’re poised for a historic Open Enrollment.

I’m grateful I had the kind of coverage that kept me standing. I want more people, employees, caregivers, partners, parents, to have access to that same support when their own storms come.