Care Shift

vik.bilakanti
  • 5.0 (2)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Daily

Care Shift, hosted by Sathvik Bilakanti, takes you inside the real world of healthtech innovation, venture capital, and company-building. Each episode features unfiltered conversations with the founders and investors shaping the future of care—breaking down how they raised capital, found product-market fit, navigated failure, and built companies that endure. Listeners learn exactly what top VCs are looking for in healthtech startups, along with tactical, step-by-step insight that early builders can immediately apply. The Care Shift also opens the doors to the venture ecosystem itself, with lea

  1. 15h ago

    From Physician to Building a Multi-Billion Dollar Company | Florian Otto, Co-Founder & CEO, Cedar

    Patients love their doctor but hate the bill. Florian Otto, co-founder and CEO of Cedar, explains how Cedar helped 24 million patients pay their medical bills last year, and why the problem was never that patients didn't want to pay. We cover: - How ACA subsidy cuts and Medicaid work requirements are raising what patients owe - What happened when a $27B health system switched Cedar off (collections dropped about 20%) - Cedar's $50M+ investment in its AI voice agent, and where humans stay in the loop - Selling the first health system on a PowerPoint, and when pilots make sense - Why Cedar builds on top of Epic instead of competing with it - Why collection agencies may not exist in 10 years GUEST Florian Otto, Co-Founder and CEO of Cedar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/florianotto/ CEDAR Website: https://www.cedar.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cedar-inc. HOST Sathvik Bilakanti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169/ FOLLOW CARE SHIFT Website: https://careshift.vc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-shift/ Care Shift is a podcast for founders, clinicians, and healthcare leaders on how care is changing.

    From Physician to Building a Multi-Billion Dollar Company | Florian Otto, Co-Founder & CEO, Cedar

  2. Oct 21

    Why Most Health Systems Fail at Value-Based Care | Tim Elliott, CEO of Navvis

    Tim Elliott, CEO of Navvis, helps health systems and physician enterprises move from fee-for-service to value-based care. We get into why value-based care is an operating model change, not a reimbursement issue, why mandatory CMMI models like TEAM and CJR-X are good for the industry, why AI is an enabler and not a strategy, and where founders should be building next. This episode is sponsored by Interconnext Consulting. Founded by Mahmud Samad, former VP of Accounting and Revenue Cycle Management at MDLIVE, Interconnext gives startups and growth-stage companies hands-on fractional CFO, strategy, and operations support to reach their next stage of growth. Want to learn more? Go to https://interconnextconsulting.com/connect/ and tell them Care Shift sent you. 00:00 Intro 00:51 Signs a health system is ready for value-based care 03:14 One operating model for fee-for-service and value 05:55 The value-based care scorecard 07:54 Post-acute spend and ED utilization 10:51 What Navvis does differently 12:38 The case for mandatory CMMI models 15:08 What CMMI should expand next 17:23 Why buying AI isn't transformation 20:03 Health system skepticism on AI ROI 22:46 Culture before compensation 25:59 Where founders should build 28:14 Avoiding pilot purgatory 30:38 Business literacy for physicians 33:13 The high-performing health system of the future 34:52 Rapid fire GUEST Tim Elliott, CEO of Navvis: https://www.navvis.com/ Time Elliot LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-elliott-b246aa151 HOST Sathvik Bilakanti: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169/ SPONSOR Interconnext Consulting: https://interconnextconsulting.com/ Connect with Interconnext: https://interconnextconsulting.com/connect/ Mahmud Samad, Founder: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahmudsamad/

    Why Most Health Systems Fail at Value-Based Care | Tim Elliott, CEO of Navvis

  3. Oct 14

    Navin Nagiah and Prateesh Maheshwari on Cutting Out-of-Network Costs by 80%

    Health plans spend millions every year paying middlemen a cut of "savings" on out-of-network claims, savings calculated from a rack rate nobody ever expects to be paid. Daffodil Health is automating that process end to end and cutting out-of-network repricing costs by about 80%.In this episode of Care Shift, Navin Nagiah (Co-Founder and CEO, Daffodil Health) and Prateesh Maheshwari (Managing Director, Maverick Ventures) break down how out-of-network claims really get paid, who ends up bearing the middleman fee, and why Daffodil walked away from the percent-of-savings model even though it means giving up 50 to 60% of potential revenue. Navin draws on his years at MultiPlan to explain why incumbents can't make this shift themselves, and Prateesh shares what he learned running finance at Oscar Health and why Maverick backed Daffodil at seed and again at Series A. We also cover the No Surprises Act, where AI fits in claims pricing, and who ultimately captures the value.CHAPTERS00:00 Welcome Navin and Prateesh00:06 What Daffodil Health does02:42 Following a $30K out-of-network claim03:52 Who really pays the middleman fee05:52 Out-of-network costs at Oscar Health07:34 What is a rental network?09:16 How middleman fees squeeze health plan margins11:07 The $10M margin opportunity for mid-sized plans12:13 Why cost containment startups never broke out15:29 Choosing trust over short-term revenue16:48 Why MultiPlan can't build this in-house19:53 How incumbents fight back22:01 The problem with percent-of-savings pricing24:03 Pricing shifts and backing spinout founders27:25 Maverick's seed diligence29:39 Giving up revenue by design31:23 Will percent of savings die?33:29 Landing the first design partners38:35 Vendor selection lessons from Oscar40:15 Regulation, press, and the No Surprises Act43:32 How the No Surprises Act works45:57 Where AI fits and where humans stay in the loop50:37 Making pricing decisions auditable52:55 What stays defensible in 3 to 5 years54:55 What Maverick looked for at Series A56:46 Why Navin chose Maverick58:17 Health plans in 3 to 5 years1:01:55 Who captures the value1:03:55 Best advice they didn't takeLISTEN TO CARE SHIFTSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6JghxsuNbQ7hWIHuLjaoJzApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1858302821#CareShift #HealthTech #HealthInsurance #OutOfNetwork #NoSurprisesAct #AIinHealthcare #VentureCapital Spotify Health plans pay middlemen millions to "save" money on out-of-network claims, but those savings are calculated from a bill nobody expects to be paid. Navin Nagiah, Co-Founder and CEO of Daffodil Health, and Prateesh Maheshwari, Managing Director at Maverick Ventures, explain how Daffodil is automating out-of-network repricing and cutting those costs by about 80%.We cover:- How an out-of-network claim actually gets paid, and who bears the fee- Why Daffodil rejected the percent-of-savings model- Why incumbents like MultiPlan struggle to change- Lessons from Oscar Health on vendor costs and margins- The No Surprises Act and independent dispute resolution- Where AI helps in claims pricing and where humans stay in the loop- What Maverick looked for at seed and Series A CONNECT WITH NAVIN NAGIAH LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navin-nagiah-8ab16 LEARN MORE ABOUT DAFFODIL HEALTH Website: https://daffodilhealth.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/daffodilhealth LEARN MORE ABOUT MAVERICK VENTURES Website: https://www.maverickventures.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/maverick-ventures-sf CONNECT WITH PRATEESH LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateesh-maheshwari/?isSelfProfile=false HOSTED BY VIK BILAKANTI LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169/?isSelfProfile=true FOLLOW CARE SHIFT Website: https://careshift.vc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-shift/

    Navin Nagiah and Prateesh Maheshwari on Cutting Out-of-Network Costs by 80%

  4. Oct 7

    Honor CEO Seth Sternberg on Buying Home Instead and Building the Biggest Home Care Network

    Seth Sternberg co-founded Meebo (acquired by Google), then started Honor to change how society cares for older adults. Today Honor owns Home Instead and runs the largest home care network in the Western Hemisphere. In this episode of Care Shift, Seth explains why he launched a home care agency before building any technology, what the Home Instead acquisition taught him about "M&A AI," and why most AI tools being sold to home care agencies are built in a vacuum. We also get into the caregiver shortage, his case for a time-limited caregiving visa, why he has zero desire to take Honor public, and his warning to founders: use AI to move faster, but never outsource your judgment. Timestamps 00:00 Intro00:53 Welcome Seth Sternberg00:59 From IBM and Meebo to home care02:56 Why pick a hard market the second time around04:43 Treating care pros as customers06:03 Why Honor started as an agency, not a tech layer09:30 Buying Home Instead and the M&A AI trend11:00 Stories vs. data after an acquisition13:21 What the Honor Care Network taught them14:39 Winning over franchisees: the 10/80/10 rule16:48 State-by-state regulation18:33 From vendor to franchisor21:46 What AI startups in home care get wrong27:36 Advice for a 23-year-old founder in care29:06 The case for a caregiving visa34:14 Raising caregiver pay through stability35:33 What a caregiving visa should look like38:11 Robotics, devices, and human care42:04 Why Honor isn't going public44:03 Home care in 204045:56 Would he start in home care today?47:12 Where AI helps founders and where it hurts49:25 Rapid fire52:19 Outro More about Seth & Honor Seth Sternberg LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethjs/X: https://x.com/sethjsHonor Website: https://www.honorcare.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/joinhonor More about Vik & Care Shift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169/?isSelfProfile=true X: https://x.com/vikbilakanti1

    Honor CEO Seth Sternberg on Buying Home Instead and Building the Biggest Home Care Network

  5. Sep 30

    Adam Besvinick of Looking Glass Capital: Why Raising Too Much, Too Early Is a Mistake

    Adam Besvinick, founder and managing partner of Looking Glass Capital, joins Care Shift to talk about being the first yes at pre-seed, and why raising too much, too early is a mistake. Looking Glass is a solo GP pre-seed fund investing across health, climate, and economic drivers. Before starting the firm in 2019, Adam invested from pre-seed through Series C at Deep Fork Capital and Anchorage Capital Group, backing companies like Transfix, BigID, One Concern, and Carrot. In this episode, we cover the moats that still matter in the AI era, the risks of selling healthcare data to frontier labs, whether Epic is really a threat to healthcare startups, how Adam built a solo GP fund starting right before COVID, and why capital constraints often produce better companies. 00:00 Intro 02:25 Building conviction when others pass 07:01 The moats that still matter in 2026 09:59 Selling healthcare data to AI labs 13:48 Can Epic replicate your startup? 17:37 Starting Looking Glass Capital 24:08 Earning LP trust as a solo GP 30:12 Why health, climate, and economic drivers 41:01 Oversized rounds and bloated financial models 46:22 The biggest fundraising mistake founders make 49:07 Rapid fire Looking Glass Capital: https://lookingglass.vc Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/besvinick Care Shift newsletter: https://careshift.substack.com/ Vik's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169/

    Adam Besvinick of Looking Glass Capital: Why Raising Too Much, Too Early Is a Mistake

  6. Sep 23

    From Burger King to MDLIVE: The Playbook for Scaling Healthcare

    Mahmud Samad has spent 20 years scaling companies across Johnson & Johnson, Burger King through its Bain Capital and TPG years, Wellpath, and MDLIVE. Today he is Founder and Principal of Interconnext Consulting, working with founders, boards, and private equity teams as a strategic CFO and operator. We cover why healthcare startups stall after their first three pilots, what a repeatable process actually means, and why he calls domain expertise the most overrated thing in business. Mahmud also explains the difference between growth and scale, what he looks at first on a P&L, who to hire before your Series A, when a company should not raise VC money, and what franchising can teach healthcare about removing friction for patients. A conversation for early-stage founders, operators, and anyone trying to build something that holds up past the first few customers. Connect with Mahmud & Learn More About Interconnext ConsultingLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahmudsamad/Interconnext Consulting: https://interconnextconsulting.comInterconnext on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/interconnext-consulting/ More on Vik & Care Shift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169/ Care Shift on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-shift/?viewAsMember=true Care Shift Website: https://careshift.vc/

    From Burger King to MDLIVE: The Playbook for Scaling Healthcare

  7. Sep 16

    GLP-1s Broke Employer Budgets. Here's What Comes Next With Ed Liebowitz of Personify Health

    If you wait for the claim, you've already lost. Ed Liebowitz, President and General Manager of Well-being at Personify Health, breaks down pre-encounter engagement, what CFOs want from wellness vendors, the Virgin Pulse and HealthComp merger, GLP-1 strategy for employers, and where AI is actually moving the needle in employer health. 00:00 Intro 01:30 Why Ed left finance for digital health 03:05 Lessons from Everyday Health, HealthReveal, and BD 05:06 Is corporate wellness just a perk? 06:51 The ROI metrics CFOs care about now 08:29 How engagement starts: HRAs and predictive risk 09:38 Employers vs. health plans: different paths to ROI 10:49 The white space for founders in employer health 12:27 Why waiting for claims data means you've already lost 14:33 Reaching beyond healthy members: the MSK pilot 17:42 How to avoid bias in personalization 19:40 Earning trust with member health data 20:55 Personal wellness plans 23:52 The Virgin Pulse and HealthComp merger 25:16 How owning the TPA changes wellbeing 26:37 Lessons from post-merger integration 28:32 What evidence closes the deal with CFOs 30:12 Network contracting and Surest 31:49 How benefits consultants evaluate vendors 33:08 GLP-1s and employer budgets 36:27 Building product as a patient 38:15 What's changing in longitudinal care 39:20 The conditions driving employer spend 40:49 Where AI is moving KPIs today 42:18 AI governance and member trust 43:21 Why Personify vs. ChatGPT and Anthropic 45:25 AI agents and benefits navigation 46:13 Who wins employer health consolidation 47:39 The North Star metric for the category 48:07 Rapid fire More about Ed Liebowitz & Personify Health Ed Liebowitz's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edliebowitz/ Personify Health LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/personify-health/ Personify Health Website: https://personifyhealth.com/ More about Vik & Care Shift Vik's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169 Care Shift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/110446420/admin/dashboard/ Care Shift Website: https://careshift.vc/

    GLP-1s Broke Employer Budgets. Here's What Comes Next With Ed Liebowitz of Personify Health

  8. Sep 9

    Inside Morgan Health with Dan Mendelson: Double Bottom Line Investing at JPMorgan

    JPMorgan Chase reviews about 400 healthcare companies a year and invests in three. Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health, explains what gets a company into that group. We cover the $330M deployed off JPMorgan's balance sheet, why a company that only cuts cost gets a pass, and the misconception Dan corrects with nearly every founder: Morgan Health's check does not come with a contract from JPMorgan's benefits team. Dan also gets into $27,000 family premiums, small employers dropping coverage, ICHRA, the coding practices driving six figure claims, and where AI is genuinely working. Dan founded and sold Avalere Health and ran health policy at OMB under the Clinton administration. (00:24) The mission and the $330M mandate (01:48) Why founders pick Morgan Health (03:35) The myth: funding is not a JPMorgan contract (05:29) 400 companies, 3 investments, what earns a yes (06:40) Savings only count if quality goes up (08:19) $27K premiums and why the market hasn't broken (09:36) Employers dropping coverage, ICHRA, narrow networks (12:17) Affordability, access, and social determinants (13:50) Why Medicare Advantage is ahead of commercial (15:39) The fee for service trap (17:23) The Lantern thesis and surgical spend (18:16) Cancer as a top cost driver (19:39) Six figure claims and coding (22:35) Where AI is actually working (25:44) What ICHRA needs to go mainstream (27:16) Lessons from OMB, CHIP, and Avalere (28:40) Rapid fire More about Morgan Health & Dan MendelsonMorgan Health Website: https://www.morganhealth.com/ About Dan Mendelson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Mendelson Dan Mendelson's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dnmendelson/ Morgan Health LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/jpmorganchase/home/ About Vik & Care Shift Vik's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sathvik-bilakanti-8b5344169 Care Shift Website:https://careshift.vc/ Care Shift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-shift/posts/?viewAsMember=true

    Inside Morgan Health with Dan Mendelson: Double Bottom Line Investing at JPMorgan
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5
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About

Care Shift, hosted by Sathvik Bilakanti, takes you inside the real world of healthtech innovation, venture capital, and company-building. Each episode features unfiltered conversations with the founders and investors shaping the future of care—breaking down how they raised capital, found product-market fit, navigated failure, and built companies that endure. Listeners learn exactly what top VCs are looking for in healthtech startups, along with tactical, step-by-step insight that early builders can immediately apply. The Care Shift also opens the doors to the venture ecosystem itself, with lea

Information

  • Creator
    vik.bilakanti
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    42
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © vik.bilakanti
  • Show Website
    Care Shift

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