Death by a Thousand Vendors: 81% of Employers Are Hiring Just to Keep Up with Digital Health Vendor Sprawl

Solera Health research reveals the operational & administrative cost of managing digital health vendors is rivaling the savings they were designed to deliver

PHOENIX, April 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- More than 40% of employers now manage eight or more digital health vendors, and 60% spend $2.5 million or more annually doing so – yet the operational cost of that complexity is rivaling the savings these solutions were designed to deliver. That's the central finding of a new research report released today by Solera Health, the premier digital health delivery company creating flexible solutions to seamlessly connect people to on-benefit care via health plans and employers.

Titled “Death by a Thousand Vendors: The Hidden Cost of Digital Health Complexity,” the survey of 106 HR and benefits leaders at organizations with 1,000 or more employees found that the number of digital health programs continue to expand across employers, but so do the costs and administrative demands needed to manage them.

"We've seen large employers managing 20, 30, even 40-plus point solutions — each with its own contract, eligibility feed, payment model and quarterly review cycle,” said Glenn Alphen, chief commercial officer at Solera Health. “The catch-22 is that every one of those programs was well-intentioned, but the cumulative complexity becomes so administratively burdensome that CFOs often dismantle the whole thing before it delivers value. A network model breaks that cycle. When digital health is delivered through a single integrated infrastructure, you don't just reduce the admin burden — you actually expand access, improve the member experience, and make the savings real."

Vendor Management Is Consuming Benefits Teams
The research illustrates the growing burden for benefits teams:

• Time spent: Nearly 80% of organizations report spending five or more hours each week managing digital health vendors, with more than a quarter spending 11 hours or more on activities such as reporting, employee communications and troubleshooting program issues.
  
  
• Help needed or Additional Resources: Many organizations have expanded their internal teams to keep up with the workload. Nearly 69% dedicate two or more full-time employees to manage benefits vendors, and more than 60% say the management burden has increased over the past three years.
  
  
• Unreliable and costly stopgaps: The complexity of managing multiple vendors is driving organizations to seek outside help. More than 70% now engage consultants, brokers or third-party administrators to navigate their digital health ecosystem, and three-quarters invest $100,000 or more annually in that advisory support.
  

Despite these additional investments, challenges with vendor management aren’t going away. Nearly two-thirds of teams’ report intervening on vendor-related issues at least weekly.

Implementation Delays Costs Add to the Burden
Beyond the day-to-day workload, many organizations report challenges when launching new digital health programs.

When managing multiple point-solution vendors, implementations take longer than expected about three-quarters of the time, often due to the complexity of integrations, data issues, security reviews and internal resource constraints.

Delays often come with unbudgeted financial implications. Nearly 68% of organizations report incurring additional costs beyond contracted vendor fees, with many organizations facing six-figure unplanned expenses tied to implementation delays or unforeseen technical challenges.

Employers Want Simpler, High Quality Digital Health Solutions
The survey findings underscore the growing desire among benefits leaders for a better way to deliver digital health.

When asked what would most reduce the burden of managing multiple vendors, respondents most frequently said better data integration and automated reporting, along with unified dashboards and simplified vendor relationships.

"Employers are spending six figures just to manage the vendors that were supposed to save them money. That's not a staffing problem; it's an architecture problem. When digital health is delivered as a curated network instead of a stack of point solutions, you eliminate the complexity at the source rather than hiring more people to manage it." said Alphen.

Access the Full Report
The report explores how vendor sprawl is impacting benefits teams, budgets and program implementation across large employers. Download the full report here.

Methodology
The survey was conducted in March 2026 across 106 U.S.-based HR and benefits leaders at organizations with 1,000 or more employees. All respondents held director-level or higher roles across industries–including manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and financial services.

About Solera Health
At Solera, we're redefining and streamlining digital healthcare delivery with a value-based, on-benefit solution that measurably drives down the total cost of care. Our curated network and HALO platform integrate seamlessly with clients’ on-premises operations, intelligently guiding participants to best-fit care providers via a flexible – all in a single digital space. For more information, visit www.soleranetwork.com.

Contact:
BOCA Marketing Agency for Solera
solera@bocamarketing.com

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