LHD RFP Response PAGE 18 For self-insured employers, LHD focuses on the fixed costs of your plan such as stop loss and administration fees to ensure our clients have market-leading pricing and terms and conditions using our market leverage. We have proprietary contracts and paved paths to preferred terms. However, these fixed costs represent a small portion of the overall expense for your plan. Throughout this document we have shared ideas and past wins, but we will reserve any proposed cost-control strategies until we are able to dig into Palmer Truck’s data. LHD employs a rigorous, evidence-based approach to accurately assess the value of network discounts, ensuring our clients have a clear and validated understanding of economics presented by each network in a geographical region. This process includes multiple layers of validation to ensure the most accurate and meaningful comparisons for our clients. 1. Tailored Claim Repricing – We conduct a customized claim repricing analysis using individual provider TIN numbers and ZIP codes. This granular approach ensures that our evaluation reflects the actual costs and network performance at the local level, rather than relying on generalized or nationalized discount figures. 2. Market-Validated Benchmarking – We utilize a proprietary process to blend vendor- provided discount data with actual market data from our extensive block of business, which represents more than $2 billion in annual medical spend, the largest in Indiana. This allows us to assess network performance against real-world claims data rather than relying solely on vendor-reported figures. 3. Proprietary Actuarial Network Evaluator – Developed in conjunction with a large Indianapolis-based actuarial firm, our Actuarial Network Evaluator aggregates commercial and Medicare reimbursement data to create a robust database of actual claim reimbursements. This tool allows us to compare network discounts in a highly precise and objective manner, ensuring clients receive an accurate picture of true market pricing. 4. Hospital Transparency File Aggregation – To further validate network discounts, we have developed custom-built tools that aggregate publicly available transparency files from hospital websites. This allows us to verify the lowest available cost of services across different networks and identify potential pricing inefficiencies. By integrating these methodologies, we provide our clients with a comprehensive, independent, and objective evaluation of network discounts. This ensures they can make data-driven decisions to optimize their healthcare spend and secure the most competitive rates available. 5. How do you objectively and independently verify the value of network discounts.