SPARK 2019: Partner Excellence Award Winners

For some WEX SPARK Health 2019 attendees, today began in a meditative way with morning yoga on the Ocean Lawn here at the Fontainebleau in Miami.

For others, those who celebrated into the wee hours the achievements of colleagues and peers recognized at last night’s Partner Excellence Awards, their top priority might have been the Barista Bar sponsored by UMB. (No judgment here if that’s the case.) Speaking of the awards …

Our Partner Excellence award winners

Our annual awards underscore Partner achievements from 2018, and we want to use this space to again congratulate the winners in their respective categories:

Growth Excellence

• Benefit Advantage
• Infinisource, Inc.
• Pro-Flex Administrators, LLC

Evangelist

• Admin America
• Benefit Strategies, LLC
• Consociate, Inc.
• Progressive Benefit Solutions 

Innovator

• Armada Corp.
• Nyhart
• UPMC

Market Maker

• Administrative Solutions, Inc. (ASi)
• bswift
• UnitedHealth Group

Sales Excellence

• Alerus
• Consolidated Admin Services LLC
• Surency Life & Health

Service Excellence

• HRC Total Solutions
• Kaiser Permanente
• The Harrison Group

Solution Visionary

• Baker Tilly Vantagen LLC
• BASIC
• Chard Snyder, an Ascensus Company
• Medica

Leadership: Todd Berkley, BenefitWallet

2018 New Partner of the Year: Associated Bank

2018 COBRA Partner of the Year: Employee Benefits Corporation

2018 Billing Platform Partner of the Year: L.A. Care Health Plan

2018 Technology Partner of the Year: HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank, N.A.

2018 CDH Platform Partner of the Year: PNC Bank

2018 Partner of the Year: Bank of America

A Wednesday to remember

Now back to today’s programming! Highlights among the mo­­­­rning’s breakout sessions were a candid interview with industry thought leader Bill Stuart; a closer look at consumer segmenting based on the petabyte of transactional data in WEX Health Cloud; and more information on ways Partners can leverage the new National HSA Awareness Day on October 15 by hosting their own HSA Day events.

Before lunch, two of WEX Health’s own industry thought leaders, Jeff Bakke and Lisa Goldkamp, shared a preview of findings from WEX Health’s upcoming research report entitled “Paying for Healthcare in America.” Together, they discussed the challenges faced by consumers when making important benefits decisions—including the barrage of technical definitions and jargon they encounter, the distrust they have for their employers’ benefits advice, and their most common misconceptions about HSAs and FSAs. Most important, Bakke and Goldkamp shared insights about what we can do to cut through the confusion and change the consumer story. A special element of this consumer-focused keynote was a big reveal that, for many employees, around the watercooler is where they get the most helpful and trusted information about health benefit options.

Closing out the day was the much-anticipated Product Keynote, featuring a perfect mix of education, inspiration and humor. (SPARK attendees are continually surprised at the comedic improv talent hidden amongst WEX Health’s product, marketing and executive teams.) Our product group armed Partners with as much knowledge about WEX Health’s product strategy and upcoming features as we could fit into one hour.

Finally, we close this jam-packed day and—dare we say it?—best conference ever, by celebrating WEX SPARK Health 2019 in style at the Fontainebleau’s famous Liv Nightclub. We’re going to kick back, socialize and recap our time together, share successes, ideas and stories, and close out another chapter in the history of SPARK.

Thanks to all who joined us this year. Let’s keep the sparks of inspiration and collaboration flying.