This episode walks through the Rosie Award winners and the case studies that make up the appendix of Relocalizing Health — the documented proof that the model described in this book is not theoretical.
Dave Chase walks through what the Rosie Awards actually represent: employers and public sector organizations evaluated on real Plan Grader scores and real reinvestment of savings through the Health Rosetta Dividend. The awards are not given for good intentions. They are given for results, for documented outcomes that show up in the numbers.
The episode covers the kinds of results that have earned organizations a place in the appendix and on the Rosie Award stage: school districts that saved millions and kept teachers in classrooms, municipalities that redirected healthcare savings into community infrastructure, employers that eliminated deductibles and copays while reducing total cost, and health systems that demonstrated what direct contracting with employers actually looks like in practice.
Dave is direct about why these stories matter: because the standard objection to everything in this book is that it sounds good in theory but would never work at scale or in a normal organization. The appendix is the answer to that objection. These are normal organizations. They are not wealthy. They are not in major metropolitan areas. Many of them are in the same kinds of communities that have been told this is too hard, too risky, or too far outside the status quo to be worth trying.
The book launches July 29 at RosettaFest in Nashville. Every attendee gets a copy.
Key Takeaways:
- The Rosie Awards evaluate real Plan Grader scores and real reinvestment of the Health Rosetta Dividend, not good intentions
- The appendix of Relocalizing Health is built from Rosie Award case studies, documented proof that the model works in normal organizations
- The organizations in the appendix are not wealthy, not in major metros, and not operating with special advantages. They are the answer to the objection that this would never work at scale.
- Results documented across Rosie Award winners include eliminating deductibles and copays, saving millions while keeping public sector budgets intact, and building direct contracting relationships with providers
- The people behind these results are at RosettaFest 2026 in Nashville, ready to share everything they built
Resources Mentioned:
- Relocalizing Health by Dave Chase: pre-order on Amazon now
- RosettaFest 2026: RosettaFest.org
- Health Rosetta Plan Grader: healthrosetta.org
- Rosie Award winners PDF: available at RosettaFest.org
Learn More:
RosettaFest 2026 - https://rosettafest.org/
Health Rosetta - http://healthrosetta.org/
Nautilus - https://www.nautilushealth.org/
Kynexions - https://kynexions.com/
Dave Chase - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chasedave/
Podcast Website - https://relocalizinghealth.com/
[00:00:00] Before we start, I want to invite you to Rosetta Fest 2026 in Nashville. This is where employers, unions, and clinicians who are cutting healthcare costs 20-50% while improving care and outcomes share exactly how they did it. Operators learning from operators with patients at the table. Learn more and register at rosettafest.org. Now let's get into today's conversation.
[00:00:25] Hey there, welcome to a special series within the Relocalizing Health podcast as we count down to Rosetta Fest in Nashville July 29th to 31st. Each one of these episodes is a quick look inside the book and the communities that inspired it. Real places, real numbers, real people who decided to stop waiting for somebody else to fix healthcare and just built something better themselves.
[00:00:54] You don't have your ticket to Nashville yet. Go grab it at rosettafest.org. This is where people in these stories will actually be in the room with you, very open to sharing their methods and excited to have you copy it and run with it in your community. So let's get into it.
[00:01:11] If there's one thing I needed to take from this whole series, it's this. The stories in the back of my book are proven models. They're documented, repeatable successes with years of receipts showing it's been done.
[00:01:35] And I put them in as an appendix on purpose as really evidence to show there's more than one structure that can work, even though they all share very common approaches. Because the number one thing that stops a leader from acting isn't disagreement. It's a quiet fear that maybe it can't really be done.
[00:01:54] And appendix exists to frankly exterminate that fear. So we have anywhere between five and 30 plus years of track record in the appendix. These are real organizations, real numbers, real names, people you can call, people you can need at Rosetta Fest. A lot of these pioneers are what we recognize through the Rosie Awards. And I want to explain what that recognition is because it's not some popularity contest.
[00:02:25] The Rosie's evaluate employers and public sector leaders on three things. One, their plan reader score. This is the first objective measure of how well their health plan is designed and predictive of high performance. Number two, what did they do with the savings? They didn't just pocket it themselves. Did they actually reinvest in their people and their community?
[00:02:51] Number three, and I don't want to overlook this at all. People sometimes do. Did they make an extra cover to share their success with others? If we don't do that, we will not see a new health care system. And these are the folks who are really leading the way and have that abundance mindset that replaces the scarcity mindset that's kept us from really having the kind of health care system that does an incredible job.
[00:03:17] That's it. Performance you can measure, reinvestment you can see, and collaboration that spreads it. No marketing, no popularity contest, no vibes. This is, and the plan grade, I'll say it again because it matters. It's a tool that's available through any Health Reset advisor. Anyone can grade their own plan. And the approach that's behind that is all publicly available. So let me give you a few of them.
[00:03:46] So you can hear how different they are and how the same principles run through all of them. Pfeiffer is a manufacturer in Alabama. They drove their plan grader from a 37 to a 74, and they turned those savings into scholarships, summer enrichment programs, free medications for their staff and dependents. And this is a factory in Tuscaloosa.
[00:04:12] They also have a presence in California, and they're out executing almost every Fortune 500 company. Then there's Rosen Hotels. They're spending less than half the national average in the toughest market in the country with a very high disease burden. And they use that dividend to put an entire neighborhood's kids through college debt-free and then extended that to two other neighborhoods.
[00:04:39] They've had their investment measured for impact. It's a seven-to-one societal return calculated by academic economists. And then there's Ashtabula, and specifically one of their school districts, one of the poorest school districts in Ohio, small school districts, only about 300 staff. And yet, in the first year they did this, and this was outside of the collective bargaining agreement, so their hands were tied on a lot of things.
[00:05:09] They saved $2.4 million in a single year, avoided teacher layoffs and benefit cuts that would have come when a school levy failed. And this is a community where people are already very stretched. Or the NUCCA system of care in Alaska. This is owned by the community it serves. ER visits down 43%. Satisfaction by both the members, what they call customer owners, and employees around 95%.
[00:05:39] And quality scores that went from the bottom 5% to the 75th or even 90th percentile. And then there's the Employers Health Cooperative of Wisconsin. One school district that refused to accept the tragedy that had impacted a secretary in their school, grew into cooperative that at last count is now serving 23,000 lives.
[00:06:06] With some groups in that holding Haas flat for eight years and other groups that are spending 45% less than what their other peers' full districts are spending in Wisconsin, which also happens to be one of the most expensive healthcare states in the country. And it is not only a bigger audience. You know, Weaver Street Market, it's a worker and consumer-owned grocery cooperative in North Carolina.
[00:06:35] They built a plan that covers 100% of functional nutrition counseling. They do home visits for members and saved over $50,000 just in sourcing specialty drugs. It's a grocery co-op doing what most Fortune 500 companies have even done yet. Now, you look at the other end of the size range. The Health Transformation Alliance is a member-owned cooperative of 65 large employers.
[00:07:04] It's about 6 million covered lives, $31 billion annual spend. And they don't take any money from carriers or TPAs or PDMs. Their engaged members are spending 15% less and have 25% fewer hospital readmissions and 29% lower drug costs. A billion dollars a year in member savings across that membership. But here's what the range tells you.
[00:07:33] Whether it's a single grocery co-op to a 6 million life alliance, a manufacturer, a hotel company, a school district, a tribe. The model doesn't care what sector you're in or how big you are. And it's also important to recognize no matter what the scale, it's already happening. Most people have no idea about this.
[00:07:57] In our community, there's over 10,000 employers covering over 5 million Americans that are already stewarded by Health Reset Advisors who are trained in these approaches. And it's spreading throughout that. So it's not a, you know, hey, this would be great someday. It's happening now. It's a movement that's underway. It's just underreported. And because the news does, good news doesn't always get reported.
[00:08:24] And it's interesting to note that if you look at this new healthcare economy, it's already bigger than the U.S. video game industry. So it's not some small thing. And I wanted these stories in the book as an appendix. So specifically, so nobody could wave it off as one lucky story that maybe got luckier a year or two. Some of these have been placed in decades. And you will put these side by side. The pattern is undeniable. It's not luck. It's a method.
[00:08:53] It's a repeatable method. So that's where I land with it. Nobody has to take this on faith. Receipts are in the back of the book. And a lot of these leaders, the ones who actually did it, are going to be in the room in Nashville at Rosetta Fest. You can walk up and ask them about how they did it. And, you know, you can find somebody just like your own organization. And the whole point of Rosetta Fest is that the proof isn't on the page. It's standing right there. And I hope we see you there.
[00:09:23] Well, that's the story for today. If it resonated, the new Relocalizing Health book is going deeper into that. And Nashville goes deeper still. So Relocalizing Health comes out July 29th right at Rosetta Fest. Every attendee will get it. You can preorder a copy now on Amazon. And if you want to be in the room, when that happens, get your ticket at RosettaFest.org. See you in Nashville.