The Trust Equation In Healthcare & Health Insurance

Frontline Teams Are The Missing Link Between Payers, Providers, & Patients

At this year’s Becker’s Spring Payer Issues Roundtable, a gathering of payer executives focused on operational innovation and trust, one theme echoed across nearly every panel: trust emerged as the missing link in healthcare transformation.

Payers are being asked to do more, including accelerate value-based care (VBC), modernize prior authorization, and integrate AI responsibly. But even the best strategies stall without trust.

When providers don’t trust payers, payers don’t fully trust providers, and members don’t trust their insurers, even well-intentioned initiatives fall flat.

Frontline teams sit at the crossroads of payer strategy and real-world care. They’re expected to deliver clarity and empathy in a system that often lacks both. And for many members and providers, the frontline team is the only human connection throughout the entire experience.

At Becker’s Spring Payer Issues Roundtable, one insight emerged clearly across 27 sessions and 300+ payer executives: the frontline workforce is a critical lever for rebuilding trust across the healthcare system.

Frontline Health Insurance Teams Are The Trust Bridge

Payers and providers want the same things: healthier members, lower costs, and fewer unnecessary procedures. But that alignment often unravels in execution, when policies meet the realities of day-to-day care and communication.

What often gets missed is this: frontline teams are the ones delivering on the promise of the contract. When a representative explains benefits clearly, resolves a denied claim with empathy, or connects a member to food or transportation support, trust is built (or lost) in that moment.

• Trust is built when frontline teams have the tools, context, and confidence to solve problems on the first try.
• Trust is lost when members are transferred, denied without explanation, or given conflicting answers. What starts as a policy issue becomes a relationship problem.

At the Becker’s conference, companies like Blue Shield of California and Humana shared examples of how they’re investing in that trust bridge — using AI to reduce repetitive work, analyzing call sentiment to improve coaching, and measuring frontline performance by connection, not just call time.

One leader at Becker’s described the healthcare ecosystem as a series of concentric circles: the patient at the center, the provider around the patient, and the payer around the provider. Trust tends to erode with each layer, meaning trust between the member and the plan is often the weakest. That distance has to be acknowledged and actively addressed, because it drives real business consequences. When payers succeed in earning member trust, the ripple effects are significant. Satisfaction scores rise. Loyalty improves. And retention follows, driving long-term revenue.

Value-Based Care Won’t Work Without Operational Trust

Speakers from nationwide health plans, including Cigna, Highmark, and MetroPlusHealth, clarified that value-based care requires more than well-written contracts. It requires operational alignment and shared risk at the executive level and at every touchpoint where a patient experiences care.

Many pointed to the lingering zero-sum dynamic between payers and providers, where misaligned incentives and siloed execution undermine even the best intentions. Rebuilding trust means creating day-to-day systems that support partnership, not just policy.

For payer organizations, delivering on value-based care means investing in the teams that translate policy into action. If a frontline agent doesn’t understand the “why” behind a program, they can’t explain it to a confused provider or a worried member. If they’re not empowered to make things right, they default to saying “no,” and trust erodes. And when trust is missing at that point of contact, it negatively impacts satisfaction, loyalty, and the bottom line.

AI Can Support Trust If It Serves The Human First

AI was a hot topic at the conference, but not as a replacement for people. The most compelling use cases showed how AI can support trust by making frontline teams more effective, not less human.

From real-time call support to prior auth automation, health plans are using AI to make the frontline faster and smarter.

However, the plans seeing the most significant AI impact, especially in fragmented environments with varied provider systems and hard-to-reach member populations, are focused on human-centered implementation. They respect member preferences, empower staff to use tools confidently, and pull the plug when something isn’t working. When AI is built to serve the people doing the work, not bypass them, it strengthens the bridge of trust between payers, providers, and patients.

3 Ways Payer Leaders Can Start Rebuilding Trust Today

You don’t need a full transformation initiative to start rebuilding trust. Here are three things health insurance ops leaders can do today:

1. Translate Strategy Into Frontline Clarity

Make sure every new contract, policy, or initiative includes training, talking points, and escalation paths for frontline teams. Representatives who can confidently explain a decision or offer a next step earn credibility in high-stakes moments. That clarity builds trust with members and providers when it matters most.

2. Measure What Builds Trust

Track first call resolution and member sentiment alongside speed and volume KPIs. Highlight agents who de-escalate, connect, and explain — not just those who move fast. When teams are recognized for quality interactions, it reinforces a culture where trust is the outcome.

For a deeper dive into how frontline turnover disrupts member trust and the customer experience, explore our analysis.

3. Elevate Your Frontline’s Voice

The frontline hears what members and providers won’t say in surveys. Build feedback loops and share learnings with your cross-functional partners. Decisions grounded in real-world input lead to better policies, smoother provider interactions, and more human member experiences.

Trust Starts Where The Call Begins

Trust isn’t rebuilt through strategy decks or system upgrades. It’s rebuilt in the moments when frontline teams listen, explain, and solve with care.

Your frontline teams are more than a service channel. They are the clearest signal of whether your organization can be trusted by members navigating care and by providers delivering it. When that trust is consistently reinforced, it strengthens satisfaction, deepens loyalty, improves retention, and fuels long-term revenue growth.

Let’s equip frontline teams to earn trust — consistently, at every touchpoint.
See how Pathstream helps payer teams build frontline trust from the inside out — with 1:1 coaching, AI simulations, and university-credentialed certificate programs.