Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

In this episode, Charles Fan, President of Headspace, and Charlie Andres, Lead Actuary at Headspace, explore the drivers behind rising behavioral health costs and the growing impact of outpatient therapy. They discuss how integrated, prevention-focused care models and improved care pathways can help health plans manage costs while delivering better outcomes.This episode is sponsored by Headspace.

In this episode, Marc Jeffreys, General Manager of Health at Gradient AI, discusses how insurers are moving from experimental AI to practical tools that support underwriting, pricing, and population health decisions. He also explains why connected intelligence across the risk lifecycle can improve pricing stability, strengthen employer relationships, and unlock clearer insights from complex data.This episode is sponsored by Gradient AI.

In this episode, Kevin Knight, Chief Marketing Officer at Sidecar Health, joins the podcast to discuss making healthcare more intuitive and consumer-friendly. He shares how giving money back to consumers through tools like HSAs can improve engagement, and explains why competition and technology are key drivers of meaningful system-wide improvement.

Jhana Spence, Senior Vice President of Strategy at CERIS, brings deep payment integrity and claims strategy experience. She talks about shifting payment accuracy earlier in the claims lifecycle. Short takes cover why moving left matters now. She highlights prepay workflows, where analytics and automation add value, and the future of proactive, collaborative payment integrity.

In this podcast, Steve Province, former CEO of a major MCO, joins Kendall Lockhart, Founder & CEO of Me+U Care, to unpack why “meeting people where they are” remains so hard in practice for many health plans, and what it will take to rebuild trust under growing HR1 pressures. A grounded, real world conversation about the human side of member retention.This episode is sponsored by Me+U Care.

Dr. Faisal Tai, a board-certified psychiatrist and founder of PsychPlus, builds vertically integrated behavioral health models and tech to boost access and coordination. He discusses fragmented systems, the need for unified platforms, EHR and handoff problems, and strategies to reduce ER use and lower total cost of care.

Gene German, CTO at Lyric with a decade in healthcare and consumer tech, leads development of Lyric 42 and AI payment integrity tools. He explains why small, domain-specific language models fit healthcare data. He discusses human-in-the-loop safety, building data and governance foundations, where SLMs boost payment integrity, and a practical roadmap for scaling AI.

In this episode, Gretchen Wagner, Associate Vice President - Risk Management, Humana, discusses how health plans are navigating cost pressures, workforce challenges, and rapid change by strengthening value-based partnerships and operational efficiency. She highlights the critical role of data interoperability, digital innovation, and analytics in improving member experience and long-term sustainability.

Dr. Sameer Amin, Chief Medical Officer at L.A. Care and interventional cardiologist, describes building durable community infrastructure for Medicaid. He discusses sustaining social determinants investments like housing, food access, and care coordination. He also covers measuring ROI, reducing administrative burden, and strategies for prioritizing high-yield SDOH under budget pressure.

In this episode, Brian Cheney, Division SVP of Sales Operations and Commercial Markets Growth at Health Care Service Corporation, discusses the launch of Unity Health Hub and how it helps employers navigate the growing number of digital health solutions. He explains how the platform integrates vetted vendors, improves member engagement, and delivers clearer data on outcomes and impact.