Hospitals are under immense pressure: burned-out clinicians, outdated systems, and rising costs have made delivering care harder than ever. 

Tanay Tandon, founder and CEO of Commure, shares how his team is rethinking hospital infrastructure by combining AI, forward-deployed engineering, and a provider-first mindset. Backed by over $750M in funding, Commure is using strategic M&A and next-gen tools like ambient AI to reduce administrative burden, improve revenue cycle operations, and protect clinical staff.

We cover:

📉 How Commure grew claims volume 5x without hiring more staff

🧠 Why the “copilot” era of AI may give way to true automation in back-office tasks

🏥 Tanay’s prediction for a simpler, decentralized hospital system—powered by software

💰 What it means to take capital from General Catalyst’s Health Assurance Fund and build for its customer network

📰 How Commure navigated negative press around its business model and acquisitions

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About our guest:

Tanay Tandon is CEO at Commure, a $6B healthcare software company. The business uses LLMs to help supercharge the productivity of clinicians, healthcare administrators, and finance teams. Commure has raised over $500 million, is backed by Sequoia Capital, General Catalyst, Initialized, YCombinator, and NVIDIA. The company’s technology powers daily workflows for 250,000 providers at over 100 major health systems.

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One in four Americans is enrolled in Medicaid, yet the system designed to support them is constantly at risk—underfunded, politically vulnerable, and often overlooked.

Dr. Alastair Bell, President and CEO of Boston Medical Center Health System, shares how his organization is reimagining what it means to care for underserved populations, while managing nearly 40% of Massachusetts’ Medicaid enrollees. In this conversation, we explore the financial realities of running an “essential” hospital system, the opportunities and pitfalls of Medicaid ACOs, and why AI might deepen inequity if essential providers are left behind.

We cover:

 🏥 What makes an “essential” hospital system (and why the term matters)

 📊 How BMC manages risk across one of the largest Medicaid plans in New

 ⚖️ Why risk adjustment in Medicaid populations is still falling short

 💊 What the 340B drug pricing program really means for safety-net hospitals

 🧠 The promise (and peril) of AI in essential care settings

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About our guest:

Dr. Alastair Bell oversees the comprehensive system strategy and operations of BMCHS' entities, including BMC, Boston Accountable Care Organization, Clearway Health, and the WellSense Health Plan.

Prior to joining in 2012, Dr. Bell was a leader in the North American payor and provider practice at McKinsey and Company, advising a range of national and international healthcare organizations and leading large-scale transformation programs. He received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Oxford, his Master of Arts in physiology from the University of Cambridge, and his Master of Business Administration with distinction from Harvard Business School. Dr. Bell currently serves as co-chair of the board for the Boston Children’s Chorus.

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Three simple questions plague every American seeking healthcare: Where should I go? When can I be seen? And how much will it cost me? Despite seeming basic, these questions have remained largely unanswerable—until now.

In this episode, we explore how Heather Fernandez, co-founder and CEO of Solv, is building the infrastructure behind same-day care for 210 million Americans. We discuss how AI is finally cracking the code on price transparency and why workflow complexity can be a competitive moat in healthcare.

We cover: 

💰 Why price transparency has been so elusive and how AI tools are positioned to finally solve it 

🤖 How AI is eliminating "garbage work" and turning front desk staff into healthcare superheroes 

⚡ Why workflow expertise is a durable advantage for healthcare startups

🚀 How to build a culture of AI at your startup

💡 Why "intractable" problems may now be solvable

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About our guest: 

Heather Fernandez is the CEO and co-founder of Solv Health, a leading platform redefining access to everyday healthcare. Solv connects consumers with a national network of providers, enabling same-day appointment availability and price transparency for patients across the country. For providers, the Solv platform acts as a growth copilot, leveraging AI to eliminate unnecessary administrative work, optimize existing capacity, and modernize the patient experience through our voice agent Maya and ClearPay price transparency. Solv integrates with EHR systems to streamline scheduling, intake, messaging, patient payments, and insights. To date, Solv has powered over 100 million visits nationwide with providers like Yale New Haven Health, GoHealth and ZoomCare.

Heather has built her career around intuitive, transparent consumer experiences, previously helping scale Trulia through its acquisition by Zillow. She serves on Atlassian’s Board of Directors and is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Stanford GSB.

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A new federal law is reshaping how healthcare is paid for and delivered in America.

In this episode, Steve sits down with health policy expert Joe Mercer to unpack the details of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It’s the most significant healthcare legislation since the ACA, with ripple effects across Medicaid, rural hospitals, and the ACA exchange.

We cover:

🧾 What Medicaid work requirements could mean for coverage and churn

🏥 Why safety-net and rural hospitals are bracing for impact

💸 How changes to provider taxes and state-directed payments shift funding dynamics

📉 What happens when ACA subsidies start to expire

🧰 Where there may be operational opportunities for coverage tech and patient engagement solutions

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About our guest:

Joseph Mercer -  Managing Director, Marwood Group is a senior healthcare policy subject matter expert with Marwood and is the firm leader for healthcare services coverage out of Marwood's Washington DC Office. Additionally, Mr. Mercer operates as a firm leader across Marwood's DC-focused research coverage, policy diligence support and retainer practice offerings. Prior to joining Marwood in 2015, Mr. Mercer worked at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) serving as a Program Analyst at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO). From his tenure at CMS, Mr. Mercer brings with him substantial expertise covering government health insurance programs with a focus on ACA exchange, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid policy issues and catalysts. Mr. Mercer holds a JD from Washington & Lee University School of Law and a BA in Economics from the College of William and Mary.

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Fresh off a $243 million fundraise from Oak HC/FT and A16Z, Ambience Healthcare is on a mission to kill medical billing — and build “Iron Man suits for doctors.”

Today we sit down with co-founder and CEO Mike Ng to talk about how Ambience is tackling one of healthcare’s most painful problems: the administrative burden that eats up 73% of a clinician’s day. 

We cover: 

🏥 How Ambience tackles both clinical documentation and medical coding simultaneously (and why this dual approach was initially controversial with investors) 

📊 The metrics he obsesses over to know if they’re succeeding

🎯 Why specialty-specific AI models outperform general-purpose solutions in complex medical subspecialties 

📈 Real-world results from Cleveland Clinic's five-way ambient listening comparison study

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About our guest: 

Mike Ng is the co-founder and CEO of Ambience Healthcare, developing AI-powered clinical documentation platforms for healthcare providers. Before starting Ambience, Mike ran a care delivery organization, giving him firsthand insights into the challenges of healthcare operations, physician management, and the gap between software demos and real-world implementation. His experience spans both the operational and technological sides of healthcare, informing Ambience's approach to building AI solutions that work seamlessly within existing clinical workflows.

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Dexcom generates more than $4 billion in annual revenue and has a market cap north of $30 billion, making it one of the biggest digital health companies in the world. And it all started with a better way to measure blood sugar.

In this episode, Halle is joined by Kevin Sayer, CEO of Dexcom, the company that pioneered continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). Under Kevin’s leadership, Dexcom scaled from $40 million to $4 billion in revenue, became the standard of care for people with diabetes, and is now expanding into consumer wellness with its direct-to-consumer product, Stelo.

We cover:

📈 How Dexcom scaled 100x without relying on acquisitions

📱 Why real-time glucose data is so powerful—and who needs it beyond diabetes

🤝 Building trust with both doctors and patients

⚖️ What GLP-1s mean for Dexcom’s business

📦 The shift from regulated med device to consumer tech

📊 The future of metabolic health (and what else their sensors might measure next)

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About our guest:

Kevin Sayer is the Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer of Dexcom.

Kevin assumed the role of CEO in January 2015 and became Chairman of the Board in July 2018. Kevin has also served as our President since 2011. He held the role of Chief Operating Officer from January 2013 until January 2015. Kevin has served as a member of Dexcom’s Board of Directors beginning in November 2007, prior to his role as Chairman and CEO.

Prior to leading Dexcom, Kevin held various management positions in his prior roles. He served as Chief Financial Officer of Biosensors International Group, Ltd., Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Specialty Laboratories, Inc., Chief Financial Officer of MiniMed, Inc., and Vice President and General Manager of Medtronic MiniMed after the acquisition of MiniMed by Medtronic.

Kevin is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and received a Bachelor’s degree and a Master's degree in Accounting and Information Systems from Brigham Young University.

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More than a thousand AI medical devices have FDA clearance, yet fewer than two percent of radiologists actually use them.

In this episode, Steve sits down with Dr. Brian Anderson—CEO and co‑founder of the Coalition for Health AI—to unpack why trust, transparency, and regulation could make or break the next wave of AI‑powered medicine.

We cover:

🤖 Why only 2% of radiologists use AI tools despite 1,000+ FDA‑cleared devices

🔍 What transparency really means and how model cards act like AI “nutrition labels”

🏛️ How federal vs. state regulators could speed up—or stall—AI‑driven care

💊 The imminent arrival of autonomous AI doctors that prescribe meds—and who’s liable when things go wrong

🚑 Brian’s bullish vs. bearish scenarios for health AI over the next three years

About our guest:

Dr. Brian Anderson is President and CEO of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), leading the development of technical standards and best practices for MLOps in healthcare, including governance, evaluation, and monitoring in Health AI Assurance Labs. Previously, he was Chief Digital Health Physician at MITRE, where he led initiatives like Advancing Clinical Trials at the Point of Care (ACT@POC) and co-led MITRE’s largest oncology R&D effort supporting the Cancer Moonshot.

A recognized expert in digital health and Health AI, Dr. Anderson has led work in clinical decision support, interoperability, and health IT standards. He formerly led the Informatics and Network Medicine Division at Athenahealth and has served on national health IT committees with the ONC. He earned his MD with honors from Harvard Medical School, a BA in Social Anthropology from Harvard College, trained at Massachusetts General Hospital, and practiced at Greater Lawrence Family Health Center. He lives in the Boston area with his wife and three children.

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When Andrew Lacy launched Prenuvo, the medical establishment largely dismissed it as fringe. Now, some of those same skeptics are collaborating with him on research.

In this episode, Halle and Michael sit down with Andrew, founder and CEO of Prenuvo, to unpack what it takes to build trust in an unconventional idea. He opens up about how a moment of personal reckoning led him to pivot from tech to healthcare—and why he believes early detection should be a fundamental right.

We cover:

📊 How they’ve built the world’s largest dataset of whole-body MRI imaging, and what they’re doing with that data

✨ What happens when Kim Kardashian shares about your company on social media, unprompted

💡 Going from being dismissed by the medical establishment to forming major research partnerships

🧠 What Prenuvo’s dataset is revealing about early disease markers, brain perfusion, and aging

📈 The economics of prevention vs. treatment—and why large employers are on their minds

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About our guest:

Andrew Lacy is the CEO and founder of Prenuvo, the leading proactive whole-body MRI. With a mission to redefine healthcare through proactive screening, Prenuvo has become the forefront of preventive medicine. Since its inception, the company has conducted over 100,000 scans, alerting 2.5-5% of patients to life-threatening conditions, from aneurysms to lesions to tumors. This achievement solidifies Prenuvo as the largest private provider of whole-body MRI, pioneering a new standard in proactive healthcare.

A seasoned entrepreneur, Lacy has a proven track record of transforming bold ideas into industry-defining ventures. He played a pivotal role in developing the iPhone apps ecosystem as co-founder of Tapulous, a mobile app company later acquired by the Walt Disney Company. Beyond his entrepreneurial pursuits, Lacy’s career spans high-impact roles in strategy, finance, and product development at global institutions, including McKinsey & Company and Disney.

In addition to leading Prenuvo, Lacy is an active advisor and investor in a diverse range of startups, applying his entrepreneurial expertise to help the next generation of innovators. With a passion for leveraging technology to improve lives, Lacy is shaping a healthcare future that prioritizes early detection, prevention, and patient empowerment.

Show Notes:

This is not a sponsored show, but our guest has generously provided a discount code for listeners. Take $300 off your Prenuvo scan with our listener code: Prenuvo.com/HOH 

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🙏 Thanks to Flexpa for sponsoring this episode. Flexpa is refactoring healthcare. Connect to 300+ health plans through a single, secure integration to access patient-consented, identified claims data instantly.

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In their first podcast since going public, Omada Health CEO Sean Duffy joins us to reflect on the journey to bend the curve of chronic disease.

From walking away from the traditional PMPM model to staying grounded in clinical outcomes, Sean shares hard-earned lessons from over a decade of building Omada—from a startup in Rock Health’s Chinatown office to IPO. 

We cover:

🔧 Killing PMPM before it killed them (and the business model shift that made Omada viable)

🎯 Designing digital experiences around actual outcomes and not just engagement

💡 What sets Digital Health 2.0 apart, and why the next wave of companies needs to focus on care delivery, not just navigation or access 

📈 What going public taught Sean about readiness, discipline, and running a mission-driven business at scale

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About our guest:

Sean co-founded Omada in 2011 with the aim of merging medical trends and cutting edge technology to revolutionize health care of chronic disease as we know it. Today, he proudly serves as CEO and has been instrumental in steering Omada toward global recognition, such as being hailed a potential “medical triumph” by The New York Times, and one of Fast Company’s 50 most innovative companies in the world.  

A longtime devotee of healthcare and technology, Sean also founded a largely automated lifestyle business around Excel Everest, the interactive Microsoft Excel training tool he created. He formerly covered healthcare innovation as writer and editor for Medgadget, a popular medical technology blog.

As CEO of Omada, Sean cares deeply about honing the organization’s exceptional products, values-driven approach to healthcare, and the innovative ways in which primary care can continue to better humanity.

More recently, Sean has been spending more and more of his free time learning how to build and fly first-person view drones.

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Dare we say digital health is back? The IPOs are IPOing, and startups (at least the AI ones) are back raising mega rounds. 

In this month’s Digital Health Download, Halle and Steve break down the recent headlines, including a blockbuster funding cycle for AI tools, a dramatic breakup between Novo Nordisk and Hims, and why Oregon’s new law could shake up how startups structure clinical care.

We cover:

📈 What the return of IPOs signals for the second half of 2025

🦄 New ways of building and funding healthcare unicorns

💔 The fallout from Novo Nordisk's split with Hims over compounded GLP-1s

⚖️ Are we trading faster innovation for a lower standard of evidence in cancer treatment?

⚠️ Why Oregon’s new anti-private-equity law could be a warning sign for startups

📚 Rethinking med school as AI reshapes the future of the profession

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Show Notes:

• Rock Health Unicorn Analysis
• Bloomberg’s cancer drug pricing investigation
• NEJM on changes to medical education
• Oregon Senate Bill 951 Summary
• Novo Nordisk terminates partnership with Hims over compounding concerns

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