Model Optimal Care Launches The MOC Academy to Keep Self-Funded Plans Current

Ten programs, from the CP-MOC designation to two free courses, teach plan sponsors and their advisors the rules and methods that apply now.

PHOENIX, AZ, UNITED STATES, October 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Model Optimal Care today launched The MOC Academy, an online training library for everyone who works with or advises self-funded health plans. The Academy opens with ten programs and 184 hours of training: the Certified Professional in Model Optimal Care (CP-MOC) designation and nine focused courses, two of them free. Every program teaches one method, drawn from Jude Odu’s book Model Optimal Care: End US Healthcare Waste, One Health Plan at a Time, and updated for what has changed since the book went to print.

Self-funded plans now cover 71 percent of workers with employer health coverage, including 85 percent at firms with 200 or more workers, according to KFF’s 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey, released October 22. CMS projects that U.S. healthcare spending reached $5.7 trillion in 2025. At the 25 to 30 cents of every dollar that researchers attribute to waste, that is as much as $1.7 trillion a year. The rules around that money are moving fast. In 2026 alone, Congress rewrote the rules for pharmacy benefit managers, and Medicare began testing artificial intelligence in prior authorization.

CURRENT BY DESIGN
The MOC Academy doesn’t replace the conferences and association programs the industry relies on. It adds a library that is dated, sourced, and kept current.
• Dated and sourced. Every course carries dated update cards that show what has changed since the book was published, with the source for every figure.
• Reviewed on a schedule. Fast-moving courses, such as AI, pharmacy, and stop-loss, are reviewed and updated every January and July. The rest are reviewed each January.
• Fair testing. Quiz and exam questions test only stable facts.
• A working case. Every course follows Northfield Components, a fictional employer. Hands-on exercises run in MOC Fiduciary Intelligence, Model Optimal Care’s AI platform, at no added cost, so no one uploads real member data.
• Credit that counts. Every course earns a verifiable Certificate of Completion, and its continuing education (CE) credits count toward CP-MOC recertification.

That standard comes from the book itself. Reviewing Model Optimal Care before its release, Ernie Clevenger, President and Publisher of MyHealthGuide and a past president of both the Health Care Administrators Association and the Self-Insurance Institute of America, wrote that for longtime practitioners it “delivers current methods, innovations, and practical arguments that sharpen how we serve the self-funded community.”

PROGRAMS BUILT FOR TODAY’S SELF-FUNDED PLAN
• CP-MOC, Certified Professional in Model Optimal Care. About 100 hours across six modules and a 105-question final exam. Holders learn to assess a self-funded plan against the five Model Optimal Care principles and the duties ERISA and the Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) place on sponsors. The designation renews every two years with 30 continuing education hours.
• Becoming Self-Funded, free. Whether, when, and how to self-fund, with a model of the learner’s own plan in the analyze.health cost model.
• AI for Health Plan Sponsors. Medicare’s WISeR model began using AI to review prior authorization requests in six states on January 1, 2026. The course teaches what AI tools can do, where they fail, and how to run a 90-day pilot.
• Fiduciary Oversight of Group Health Plans. ERISA and CAA duties, committee practice, and vendor monitoring, taught alongside the drug-pricing lawsuits that have named Johnson & Johnson, Wells Fargo, and JPMorgan Chase.
• Pharmacy Benefit Oversight. The Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA) of 2026 requires pharmacy benefit managers to pass 100 percent of rebates through to ERISA plans, for plan years beginning on or after August 3, 2028. It covers PBM contracts, audit rights, formulary waste, and specialty and GLP-1 spending.
• Stop-Loss and Captive Oversight for Self-Funded Plans. How to read, monitor, and renew stop-loss coverage and judge a group captive proposal. In the Self-Insurance Institute of America’s 2026 Captive Industry Survey, 15 of 16 brokers without captive clients said they wanted more education about captives.

The catalog also includes Price Transparency and Provider Pricing; Claims Payment Integrity and Fraud, Waste, and Abuse; Utilization, ER Redirection, and Care Management; and Benefits Literacy for HR Teams, which is free.

FOR EVERYONE AROUND THE PLAN
The Academy serves plan sponsors, CFOs, benefits committees, and HR teams; the brokers, consultants, TPAs, stop-loss carriers, and captive managers who advise and administer their plans; and anyone in the self-funded community who wants current knowledge of the industry. Corporate seats are available at volume pricing.

FROM THE FOUNDER
“When Ernie Clevenger wrote that the book delivers current methods that sharpen how we serve the self-funded community, he named the standard we hold ourselves to. A book is fixed the day it prints. The rules that govern these plans keep moving. The MOC Academy keeps the method current, so the people who sponsor, advise, and study self-funded plans learn what applies this year, with the evidence in front of them.”
Jude Odu, Founder and Principal, Model Optimal Care

AVAILABILITY
Enrollment is now open at MOClearn.com, and learners can start with either of the free courses. Many employers cover professional education through an educational assistance program under IRS Section 127, which can pay up to $5,250 per employee tax-free in 2026. Every Academy course fee fits inside that limit, and each paid course offers a ready-to-use reimbursement packet. CP-MOC credential holders and MOC Fiduciary Intelligence subscribers receive discounts on paid courses.

ABOUT MODEL OPTIMAL CARE
Model Optimal Care is a Phoenix, Arizona company building artificial intelligence, analytics, and educational programs for self-funded health plans. It operates MOC Fiduciary Intelligence at fiduciaryIQ.ai and The MOC Academy at MOClearn.com, and publishes The MOC Brief, a twice-weekly industry newsletter. Learn more at modeloptimalcare.com.

ABOUT THE FOUNDER
Jude Odu is Founder and Principal of Model Optimal Care and author of Model Optimal Care: End US Healthcare Waste, One Health Plan at a Time. He has spent more than 25 years in healthcare technology and data science, and previously founded Health Cost IQ and Health Data Intelligence.

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