Bio

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 Robert Smedley is the owner and president of the Matthias Group, the nation's only pharmaceutical benefit management consulting firm that exclusively serves Catholic dioceses, orders, and other religious institutions.  He has spent the last 20 years helping the Catholic Church maximize its employee/priest benefits, save revenue, comply with ever-changing regulations, and protect the Church’s Catholic identity in its employee benefit plans. In 2019, he opened the Matthias Group after learning how PBMs take advantage of employers and provide medications that directly violate Catholic teaching. Since Matthias Group opened, several Archdiocese and Dioceses have taken advantage of the services they offer. Collectively,  those dioceses have saved tens of millions of dollars and now better protect,  and promote, Catholic teaching in their health plans. Mr. Smedley began his career in employee benefits consulting in 2004 with an insurance agency that served the Catholic Church. In 2010, after the ACA  became law, he concentrated his efforts on helping dioceses comply with the new laws in such a way that did not violate the tenants of the Faith, and in 2012 he was promoted to president of his firm. He has two decades of experience and unique skills in facilitating relationships for Catholic organizations,  both with each other and secular organizations that serve the Church. For example, he established a partnership with the HealthTrust Purchasing Group, the nation’s largest single-source purchaser of employee benefits RX drugs and whose founding members included several Catholic hospital systems. Working with them he built a program that allows the Church to realize tremendous savings, gain greater control and transparency of its benefits, and leverage its size and standing to protect Catholic teaching. He opted to dedicate himself to educating the Catholic dioceses on how best to navigate the employee benefits arena, from a financial, compliance, and Catholic teaching position. Not every diocese or religious institution can carve off its PBM services, the Matthias Group provides consulting services to these dioceses, which may have local brokers that facilitate their insurance purchases but do not have a depth of knowledge when it comes to working with Catholic institutions and how to navigate the Church’s unique needs. Mr. Smedley is a member of the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI), the Catholic Benefits Association (CBA), the Catholic Health Care Leadership Alliance (CHCLA) ,and the Catholic Bar Association (CBA). He also supports, and as spoken at, the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference (DFMC), and the National  Association of Church Personnel Administrators (NACPA) Convocation. He has written articles for Catholic publications such as the National Catholic Bioethics Center’s (NCBC) Ethics and Medics, Catholic Legal  Update, and The DFMC Herald. He received his degree in Management and Organizational Leadership and resides in Florida with his wife  and daughter, and since converting to Catholicism in 2005, attends St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish in the  Diocese of St. Petersburg.