Health Tech: Rafal Walkiewicz of Hella Health On How Their Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With Luke Kervin

You need to find a cause or a product that you believe in. Changing the world is difficult enough, but if you have doubts yourself, then you’re not going to succeed.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rafal Walkiewicz.

Rafal Walkiewicz is the founder of Hella Health, the first digital health insurance platform to educate, advise, and enroll customers in Medicare plans. With over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry, Rafal is passionate about simplifying the Medicare buying process and using technology to empower people to live healthy, happy lives. Prior to Hella Health, Rafal ran Willis Towers Watson’s global securities business and started the company’s efforts in InsurTech. He also spent a decade at Goldman Sachs, where he worked on insurance M&A.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

Sure thing — thank you for having me. I grew up in Poland at a time of great opportunity. After the collapse of the Berlin Wall, a true market economy was being created; however, there was no infrastructure that existed. Therefore, this was a time that if you wanted to do something, you had to create the infrastructure to support it. Growing up in this environment taught me to believe that anything is possible because if something doesn’t exist you can work to create it yourself.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I was 20, when I started building a licensed stockbrokerage house with the goal of opening Polish stock markets to foreign investment. This idea seemed impossible at the time because existing regulations imposed a period of several weeks between the payment for shares and their first listing. This period was difficult for foreign fund managers to accept, but for many Poles it represented a pillar of national finance law.

I set my aim at changing this procedure. Working with specialists from the SEC and the Warsaw Stock Exchange, I developed share proxies — called “Rights to Shares” (PDAs) — which could be traded on the market before the final registration. This move turned out to become a small revolution in the Polish finance world.

I like to think that this was my contribution to the foundation of modern Polish capital markets. Finance specialists had previously believed that the registration procedure couldn’t be accelerated. I refused to be bound by a sense of limitation and instead sought to create solutions to change the seemingly unchangeable.

This experience helped me shape my thinking away from “is it possible?” towards, “how do we do it?.”

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

There isn’t just one person who has helped me get to where I am today. There are so many people that have impacted my life. I think there are four ideas that I would share with someone who is hoping to achieve success in however they define it:

Surround yourself with positive people. Whether it is partners, employees, clients, or even regulators — find people who share the same mission as you, but who might not think the exact same way as you.

You can learn something from anybody. Always be willing to listen and take a moment to consider their perspectives.

Know your strengths. Once you know them, find people to help fill in your blind spots.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince:

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

I like this quote because it’s a reminder that if you try to create a new way of doing things, there will always be people along the way who will doubt you, try to bring you down, or a combination of the two.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

In addition to the traits I detailed earlier, above all else you have to dream big, but at some point you need to stop dreaming and execute. A successful business leader must be willing to plow through the actual work and be meticulous about planning and execution every step of the way.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

Medicare is incredibly important but has gotten increasingly complex over the years. For 2022, the average Medicare beneficiary now has access to 39 Medicare Advantage plans — more than double the number of plans available per person than in 2017. And the system for choosing Medicare plans could not have been a worse match. Right now, most older Americans must make their choices with an agent on the phone.

Phones are a terrible communication setting for choosing a complex product that needs to be just right for your needs. I see the phone as the first “villain” in this process. Phones are impersonal and a lousy medium for older Americans to parse out detailed differences between different options and overall, a totally ill-suited way of explaining the intricacies of Medicare options.

How do you think your technology can address this?

This is where Hella Health comes in. Technology can solve the communication downsides of the phone while giving older Americans the best path to the right plan for them. Our web-based platform can ask questions and deploy AI to guide older Americans to the right plan from the myriad available in a convenient, honest, and safe manner.

A web platform isn’t a pushy salesperson. There are no time limits to older Americans wishing to know more about various available plans. Hella Health also doesn’t take incentives to promote plans, so we promise older Americans unbiased and honest advice regarding their plans. Our platform presents the best plan options based on individual needs.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

It’s an interesting story. Having been in the insurance world throughout my career, I was interested in improving the distribution of insurance. In this search, I stumbled upon a telemarketing company that sold Medicare. I did my proper due diligence and even thought about acquiring the firm, but my main takeaway was that the business model for selling Medicare was broken. Selling such a complex matter over the phone to unsuspecting older Americans through poorly trained agents is just wrong.

I realized that trying to make the insurance industry “join the party” of how other industries do business wouldn’t work and that I had to do it myself if I wanted to see real change. The fact that Medicare buying process has a bad reputation, is largely due to a misalignment of interests. Selling plans through the phone exacerbates this misalignment, whereas I believe Hella Health will help rebalance these interests.

How do you think this might change the world?

We’re trying to change the Medicare buying journey for the new generation of savvy customers. Older Americans are now more active and tech savvy than ever before and so their Medicare buying process should reflect that.

Think of the current situation like this: property and casualty (P&C) insurance is 10 years behind tech. Medicare is 10 years behind P&C. In my opinion, Hella Health is overdue and we’re working to cut out the real villain in all of this — the phone.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Privacy and who owns sensitive data is rightfully a major topic right now. That’s why we promise older Americans full control over their data. Protecting data is our promise — we’re built around our privacy pledge.

Some might also think substituting a phone call between two humans for a web-based platform will remove the personal nature of the interaction, but they’d be mistaken. Right now, the process of agents selling plans over the phone is ill-suited for explaining the complexities of various Medicare plans and the needs of specific individuals. Additionally, agents are often minimally trained as many of them are Q4 seasonal employees who are trying to get as many sales as they can as quickly as they can.

Hella Health ensures that older Americans have control over their Medicare plans and their lives as they help them get a plan that actually works for them.

Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)

First, you need to find a cause or a product that you believe in. Changing the world is difficult enough, but if you have doubts yourself, then you’re not going to succeed.

Second, it helps immensely if you can find a way to help people — particularly those that are weaker or more vulnerable for whatever reason. For the Medicare insurance market, the market is massive but often times the interests are so misaligned that the eventual customer places their faith in the wrong advisor and ends up with the wrong plan for them.

Third, you have to understand what you’re trying to change in the industry — disruptive change or incremental change. For example, with the Medicare buying process, we’re trying to disrupt the current phone selling model with our unbiased digital advisor in Hella Health.

Fourth, there will be a lot of people who tell you you’re wrong or you won’t succeed. This is where most people think regulators will be; however, in my experience regulators are among the most productive and helpful people you can have on your journey. Remember to look for help everywhere because you might find allies in places you may not expect.

Finally, don’t be afraid to do things your way. However you think is best to achieve success, do it, and explain to others along the way your thinking.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

Making the world a better place — in however you perceive it — is one of the only lifetime motivators. Money and success, in whatever fashion, are short term dopamine hits. Only through striving to improve the world around us — big or small — will you continuously stay motivated.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

I would love the chance to sit down with Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). She oversees programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the HealthCare.gov health insurance marketplace. Ms. Brooks-LaSure was also a former policy official who played a crucial role in guiding the Affordable Care Act through passage and implementation.

I’d welcome the chance to pick her brain and share my own thoughts about how we can work together towards improving the lives of older Americans.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can check out our website — HellaHealth.com — as well as our LinkedIn page. We’re constantly sharing new perspectives on Medicare-related topics and about how we’re striving to improve the lives of older Americans.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.