To provide employee benefit brokerages with the incentive for keeping group health care costs manageable for consumers, nonprofit institution Health Rosetta has canvassed the nation and begun to offer specialty certification, attracting 30 businesses to date.

Helping Health Rosetta to reach that milestone, St. Louis-based benefit advisory firm Simpara recently became the 30th U.S. enterprise to join its ranks — and, simultaneously, Missouri’s first brokerage to do so.

The St. Louis HR and benefits firm’s founder and president, Adam Berkowitz, who achieved membership in Health Rosetta’s “charter class” of certified benefit advisers, described the status as distinctive and potentially game changing.

“There are plenty of people within the St. Louis region that do what I do [by being a broker] and this is a mark of distinction that we are doing something different and better,” Berkowitz said. “The long-term view is the process of learning from other agents across the country that are applying cost-saving principles and doing things in a way that bucks the status quo.”

Acknowledging that the membership does not confer automatic status entitlement, Simpara’s Berkowitz explained that it serves as further incentive to strive for improved industry standards.

Health Rosetta wants to reduce public spending, help workers save more, and encourage wage increases. It strives to assist public and private sector employers and unions in offering better health care while lowering outlay for benefits.