
What Is a TPA? A Complete Guide for Self-Funded Health Plans
A third-party administrator (TPA) is the backbone of any self-funded plan. Here’s how a TPA processes claims, manages eligibility, and supports employees.
Explore our blog resources to help employers and advisors understand the value of captive insurance.

A third-party administrator (TPA) is the backbone of any self-funded plan. Here’s how a TPA processes claims, manages eligibility, and supports employees.

Cost containment in healthcare is the discipline of cutting waste without cutting care. Here’s how self-funded employers find the spend and stop it.

Roundstone’s 2025 Medical Captive Forum brought hundreds of employers and advisors to Cleveland for two days focused on tackling rising healthcare costs.

Healthcare cost containment finds waste, removes it, and keeps outcomes intact. Self-funded plans give you the claims data to do it at scale.

Higher deductibles shift cost to employees and often backfire on engagement and retention. Self-funding offers a smarter path to controlling premium growth.

Self-funding gives you the control, claims visibility, and flexibility to attack the cost drivers that fully insured plans actively hide from view.

Self-insured plans give employers control over claims, vendors, and spend. Fully insured plans hide the data. Here’s how the two

Captive insurance changes how employers absorb and manage healthcare costs. Group medical captives turn unpredictable claims into a controllable, transparent

A medical captive advisor helps employers evaluate self-funded captives, compare partners, and design a plan that protects against catastrophic claims

Level funding looks like self-funding from a distance but lacks claims transparency, vendor flexibility, and surplus return. Here are ten

Prescription drug prices are the fastest-growing cost in employer benefits. Self-funded plans give you the visibility and tools to bend

A subrogation strategy recovers dollars that another responsible party should pay. Here’s how self-funded employers and captives build a plan

Organ transplants by the numbers: volume, average cost, and what self-funded employers should know about preparing for these high-impact, high-cost

Organ transplants are among the highest-cost claims any employer plan can face. Here’s how self-funded employers prepare with stop loss

Association health plans give small employers a path to group purchasing power. Here’s how they work and when self-funded captives

Choosing a TPA is one of the highest-leverage decisions in a self-funded plan. Here are the tips employers use to

Nurses are central to cost containment, quality of care, and patient outcomes. Here’s how self-funded plans put clinical expertise to

After a year of pandemic-driven change, here are the top five trends impacting health insurance costs and what self-funded employers

Nine practical ways employers can offset rising healthcare costs, from PBM strategy to centers of excellence, claims audits, and self-funded

Employee health drives healthcare cost. Well-being programs invest upfront in prevention and return compounding savings to self-funded plans over time.

Lowering prescription drug costs takes more than PBM negotiation. Self-funded employers can stack pharmacy strategy, direct contracts, and care management.

Roundstone’s CSI dashboard turns claims data into actionable healthcare analytics, helping employers find waste and bend their per-employee-per-year cost curve.
Self-funding means an employer pays for their employees’ healthcare claims directly instead of paying fixed premiums to an insurance carrier.
A medical group captive is a self-funded model where small and mid-sized employers join together to access financial advantages, share risk and gain greater stability.
Stop-loss insurance protects self-funded employers from large or unexpected claims. It caps financial risk so one high-cost event doesn’t significantly impact your overall healthcare spend.
Health insurance costs rise due to increasing healthcare prices, higher utilization, and lack of transparency in traditional models. Learn how self- funding through a captive can help offset these trends.
Cost containment includes strategies that reduce unnecessary healthcare spending while maintaining quality care. Read how tactics like claims analysis, preventative care, and pharmacy cost management can reduce spend.
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