How The Well Studio is Navigating Insurance Partnerships with WellnessLiving

Introduction: A Mission-Driven Approach to Wellness

Ron Kodl, owner of The Well Studio, has a vision to promote accessible, community-centered fitness and wellness that recognizes movement as preventive medicine. He saw that quality preventive fitness and wellness services were financially inaccessible for many, and very few boutique wellness providers worked with insurance companies. This left a huge gap in the market, particularly for women over 45 who prefer smaller, more tight-knit environments over big-box gyms.

Ron’s professional experience in the biotech and pharma industry gave him insight into the insurance reimbursement system, and he saw an opportunity to bridge the divide for this population. By partnering with insurance providers and employer-sponsored wellness programs, The Well Studio is making high-quality fitness and wellness services more accessible to underserved populations.

The Challenges of Working with Insurance Companies

The Well Studio’s integration with insurance plans comes with its complexities. While Ron’s experience has equipped him to navigate reimbursement structures and negotiations, the process remains intricate. This case study explores two key ways Ron has leveraged WellnessLiving to streamline insurance partnerships and business operations.

Challenge #1 – Operationalizing a Diverse Revenue Model

The integration of insurance partnerships at The Well Studio has led to a diverse revenue model, balancing direct-paying members with insured members. Approximately 50% of the studio’s members participate through an insurance plan, yet these members generate only one-third of total revenue, highlighting the subsidized nature of these plans. To maintain financial balance, The Well Studio needed to avoid over-reliance on lower-reimbursement insurance clients while ensuring full-paying members received priority access to services and perks.

Challenge #2 – Streamlining Administrative Burdens

Tasks like verifying eligibility, compiling reports, and entering data into insurance portals took hours each month. Additionally, for clients who must submit reimbursement claims themselves, staff had to take multiple steps to provide necessary documentation, including attendance records and provider signatures.

The Solution: Streamlining Operations with WellnessLiving

To efficiently manage insurance partnerships, The Well Studio has leveraged WellnessLiving’s software solutions, ensuring financial stability, tailoring access to services by membership type, and meeting insurance requirements while reducing administrative work. Here’s how these tools have made a difference:

Solution #1 – Flexible Purchase Option Configurations

Ron has used WellnessLiving’s flexible purchase options to implement fair and financially sustainable membership policies, including:

• Tiered Membership Access: To maintain value for full-paying members while still serving insurance-funded clients, The Well Studio developed structured policies that prioritize perks like early booking and prioritized waitlists for core members.

• Capping Insurance Memberships: To maintain a balance between full-paying members and insurance clients, The Well Studio limits the number of memberships available through certain insurance providers.

Solution #2 – Reducing Insurance Reporting Time from 5 Hours to 1 Hour per Month

With The Well Studio managing multiple insurance plans (American Specialty Health, Optum, United Healthcare, and more), keeping track of member eligibility was a significant challenge. Previously, Ron’s team had to extract data from multiple reports and manually consolidate it before submission to different insurance companies.

Now, using Custom Profile Fields, Ron’s team captures essential data like insurance provider, member ID, and other contract details required by insurers. With WellnessLiving’s updated Client Visit Reports, The Well Studio can generate reports tailored to each insurer’s requirements. Ron estimates this will reduce reporting time by 80%, from up to five hours down to just one per month, allowing him to focus on strategic growth instead of administrative tasks.

Solution #3 – Automated Receipts for Insurance Reimbursement

Some members independently submit reimbursement claims through HSAs, FSAs, or employer wellness programs. Previously, The Well Studio had to manually add information to printed receipts or reports to ensure they met insurer requirements. Now, WellnessLiving’s Customizable Receipts automate the process, eliminating manual work. Clients automatically receive receipts containing required details, including member IDs, provider signatures, and other relevant information.

Conclusion

The Well Studio’s experience highlights both the opportunities and challenges of integrating insurance partnerships for boutique fitness centers. With the right systems in place—particularly software like WellnessLiving that allows businesses to define nuanced policies, simplify reporting, and streamline member tracking—fitness businesses can successfully navigate insurance relationships while maintaining financial stability.

While working with insurers remains a learning process, WellnessLiving has helped Ron dramatically reduce administrative overhead—allowing him to focus on expanding access to wellness.

Learn More: Read Ron’s blog post about fitness as preventative healthcare here.

Interested in seeing how WellnessLiving can support your business, too? Book a demo today!