Health Tech Nerds Radio

Kevin O'Leary, Martin Cech
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Where we share our weekly news debriefs and discussions with industry experts. These are lo-fi recordings aimed at giving our readers more opportunities to engage with our analysis and a view into some of the conversations that shape it.

  1. 1d ago

    Betting on regulatory tailwinds: how Evidenced picks its deals | Bryan Sivak & Sean Glass

    Bryan Sivak and Sean Glass closed a $24 million first fund for Evidenced. They invest in healthcare companies benefiting from a regulatory or policy tailwind that pushes buyers to act sooner or spend more.Both are repeat entrepreneurs — Sivak sold his company, Glass took his public — and they walk through the portfolio bets that prove the thesis out, from a community health worker platform spun out of UPenn to a cardiometabolic care company navigating GLP-1 coverage. They're candid about the difficulty of fundraising as first-time managers competing against multi-stage giants for LP dollars, and they lay out which policy trends they think are durable versus which ones won’t last through the next administration. Links referenced Sean and Bryan (Evidenced): sean@evidenced.com, bryan@evidenced.com For more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    Betting on regulatory tailwinds: how Evidenced picks its deals | Bryan Sivak & Sean Glass

  2. 2d ago

    CMS Bridge forecast, broker fraud, and the ACA numbers everyone's misreading | Sam Melamed (NCD)

    Sam Melamed spent 20 years building Insurance Forums into the largest online community for insurance agents and brokers before becoming CEO of NCD, a top-rated dental, vision, and supplemental benefits administrator, five years ago. He argues fears of an ACA "death spiral" are overstated, and pushes back on claims that fraud alone explains recent enrollment declines. He also breaks down how CMS's new Bridge program for GLP-1s is likely to play out, and previews the pullback in Medicare Advantage supplemental benefits expected heading into the next open enrollment period. Links referenced Sam Melamed (NCD): sam@ncd.com For more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    CMS Bridge forecast, broker fraud, and the ACA numbers everyone's misreading | Sam Melamed (NCD)

  3. 4d ago

    The Grand Roundup: Debating the future of ESI, concierge medicine's $40K price tag, Elevance/SCAN sue over Stars, ACA rate hikes and death spiral fears, and more

    Kevin and Martin open by discussing a question that recently surfaced in the Health Tech Nerds Slack community: is employer-sponsored insurance actually crumbling, or just showing its age? They then move into a conversation about Midi's CEO calling out a $40K/year concierge menopause practice on LinkedIn and a run of quick hits: Elevance and SCAN joining Clover in suing over Stars ratings, a Wall Street Journal piece flirting with "death spiral" language for the ACA, Alignment Health's accounting troubles, and Pearl Health's $110M raise stacked half on credit. Then Bryan Sivak and Sean Glass join to break down Evidenced, the venture fund they just launched with a $24 million raise. They explain the fund's core thesis — backing early-stage health tech and tech-enabled services companies where a specific regulatory or policy tailwind accelerates buying — and walk through portfolio examples like IMPaCT Care, the community health worker infrastructure company spun out of UPenn. Sam Melamed, CEO of NCD and self-described "Chief Insurance Nerd," closes things out. He walks through NCD's supplemental benefits business, then dives into forecasting enrollment in CMS's new Bridge program, discussing what full-page Eli Lilly ads in the New York Times signal about the money already flowing into that market, and lays out why he thinks standalone dental and vision plans keep gaining ground alongside Medicare Advantage. Links referenced Out of Pocket, Out of Reach: https://www.statnews.com/health-insurance-costs-out-of-pocket-out-of-reach-series/ The Billionaires’ Vagina Club: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/07/06/the-billionaires-vagina-club ACA rate increases: https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/obamacare-insurers-seek-big-rate-hikes-again-8a4bf9e4 Sean and Bryan (Evidenced): sean@evidenced.com, bryan@evidenced.com Sam Melamed (NCD): sam@ncd.com For more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    The Grand Roundup: Debating the future of ESI, concierge medicine's $40K price tag, Elevance/SCAN sue over Stars, ACA rate hikes and death spiral fears, and more

  4. Jul 1

    A physician-turned-founder's take on making prior auth actually work | Jeremy Friese (Humata Health)

    Jeremy Friese spent a decade as a physician at Mayo Clinic navigating prior auth from the provider side. Now he runs Humata Health, which helps large health systems submit better prior auths to every plan in the country. Humata is a participant in CMMI's WISeR program, handling Oklahoma's fee-for-service Medicare prior auth, and six months in, providers are submitting almost exclusively through Humata's portal. Jeremy's view on fixing prior auth: use AI only to say yes, build real transparency into the rules, and let humans sort out the small fraction that actually requires a fight. Links referenced CBS article on WISeR rollout in Oklahoma: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/medicare-ai-program-wiser-prior-authorization-errors-delays/Substack on AI usage in prior auth: https://spinalcolumn.substack.com/p/the-algorithm-is-denying-your-authHumata Health: humatahealth.comJeremy Friese: jeremy@humatahealth.comFor more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    A physician-turned-founder's take on making prior auth actually work | Jeremy Friese (Humata Health)

  5. Jun 29

    The Grand Roundup: Agentic voice AI wars, recent funding roundup, Cityblock acquires Homeward, UpDoc's FDA clearance, Humata's WISeR rollout, and more

    Kevin and Martin start with a discussion about a crowded week in healthcare AI funding. Prosper AI and Assort Health’s fundraising announcements were released on back-to-back days, with nearly identical customer quotes claiming each was "the only true platform." Kevin and Martin work through what that signals about the agentic voice AI space. They also cover Alan's €480M raise at a $6.3B valuation, Trase's $107M seed round, Cadence's RPM-to-chronic-care-management pivot, Hera's CCM play, Upside's Medicaid housing engagement numbers, the Cityblock-Homeward acquisition, and UpDoc's FDA 510K clearance. They close by explaining stop-loss lasering and what it means for insurability when the bag keeps getting passed. Then Jeremy Fries, CEO and founder of Humata Health, joins to talk through WISeR — the CMMI prior auth program now live in Oklahoma. Jeremy walks through how the program works (AI says yes instantly; humans adjudicate everything else), what the rollout has actually looked like on the ground, why provider adoption numbers are better than the headlines suggest, and why he thinks prior auth, done right, is one of the few places in healthcare where payers and providers can actually find common ground. Links referenced Bloomberg article on MyConnections: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-11-05/unitedhealth-s-myconnections-houses-the-homeless-through-medicaidWSJ article on UpDoc: https://www.wsj.com/pro/venture-capital/updocs-ai-gets-fda-nod-to-act-as-concierge-doctor-between-visits-2b7fa41bMarsh McLennan report on lasering: https://view.ceros.com/marsh-mma-mid-atlantic/success-stories/p/19CBS article on WISeR rollout in Oklahoma: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/medicare-ai-program-wiser-prior-authorization-errors-delays/Substack on AI usage in prior auth: https://spinalcolumn.substack.com/p/the-algorithm-is-denying-your-authHumata Health: humatahealth.comJeremy Friese: jeremy@humatahealth.comFor more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    The Grand Roundup: Agentic voice AI wars, recent funding roundup, Cityblock acquires Homeward, UpDoc's FDA clearance, Humata's WISeR rollout, and more

  6. Jun 25

    The liability gap holding clinical AI back — and who should solve it | JD Friedland (Cleveland Clinic)

    JD Friedland is the executive director for ventures at Cleveland Clinic, where he evaluates and deploys emerging health technology across one of the country's largest and most research-intensive health systems. He walks through what Cleveland Clinic has actually built — some examples include: sepsis detection with Bayesian, clinical trial recruitment via Dyania, and surgical note generation through Theator's ambient video platform. He gets into why Cleveland Clinic's data is worth more today than it will be once the window to be an early contributor has closed, why OpenEvidence's pharma-advertising model gives him pause, and why the liability question, not the technology, determines the speed of clinical AI deployment. Brought to you by Ursa Health: Join HTN, Atlas Oncology Partners, and Ursa Health this Wednesdsay, June 24 at 12pm ET to dive into specialty value-based care. Register to attend and receive the recording: luma.com/htn-ursa-atlas For more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    The liability gap holding clinical AI back — and who should solve it | JD Friedland (Cleveland Clinic)

  7. Jun 22

    The Grand Roundup: Anti-tiering contracts and the OhioHealth ruling, Thoreau/Ensemble update, 340B and Eli Lilly, OpenLoop's D2C play, Cleveland Clinic on AI trust, and more

    Kevin and Martin by discussing the OhioHealth DOJ settlement and what banning anti-tiering, anti-steering clauses in hospital contracts could mean for employer plan design, narrow networks, and upstart insurance models. They talk about the $12B Ensemble Health Partners deal: what it says about the RCM market's appetite for holistic versus point-solution approaches, and where it might fit into Matt Holt's broader Thoreau acquisition agenda. The Clover-Stars recalculation gets a full breakdown: what the judge sided with, what CMS did next, who won, and the uncertainty now rippling through payer teams, provider comp models, and the whole vendor ecosystem built around Star scores. Martin digs into the 340B program via Minnesota's annual state report, explaining Eli Lilly's decision to freeze discounts for non-compliant hospitals, the FQHC access problem at the center of it, and whether a rebate model actually helps or just punishes the safety net players the program was designed for. And Kevin walks through OpenLoop's Shopify-for-telehealth launch, what it would actually mean if anyone with an audience could create a D2C GLP-1 brand in hours, and why the economics of that model are an interesting question. Then JD Friedland, Executive Director for Ventures at Cleveland Clinic, joins to walk through how one of the country's flagship health systems is thinking about AI deployment. JD talks about what Cleveland Clinic has actually built with ambient listening, clinical trial enrollment via Dyania, and surgical documentation through Theator. He gets into the data consortium question—why your institution's data is most valuable when you’re an early contributor—and the liability and brand risk that makes health systems cautious about deploying forward-facing AI solutions they don't fully control. Brought to you by Ursa Health: Join HTN, Atlas Oncology Partners, and Ursa Health this Wednesdsay, June 24 at 12pm ET to dive into specialty value-based care. Register to attend and receive the recording: luma.com/htn-ursa-atlas Links referenced OhioHealth / DOJ Settlement: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-ohiohealth-stop-using-anticompetitive-healthcare-contract-terms Minnesota 340B Report: https://www.health.state.mn.us/data/340b/docs/2025report.pdf For more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    The Grand Roundup: Anti-tiering contracts and the OhioHealth ruling, Thoreau/Ensemble update, 340B and Eli Lilly, OpenLoop's D2C play, Cleveland Clinic on AI trust, and more

  8. Jun 17

    The tasks AI should take off doctors' plates — and the ones it shouldn't | Hashem Zikry (Counsel Health)

    Hashem Zikry is a practicing emergency physician at UCLA, a researcher focused on unnecessary ED utilization, and the medical director for clinical research and policy at Counsel Health — which, this week, began integrating Oura biometric data into clinical decision-making for the first time. That combination of roles gives him an unusual perspective on the question everyone is asking: what should AI actually be allowed to do in clinical care? He also speaks about regulation — the current state-by-state landscape ranges from Utah's live AI sandbox to New York and Colorado bills that would sharply limit patient-facing AI — and Zikry argues a federal floor would accelerate innovation rather than constrain it. On the Oura partnership, he pushes back on the concern that wearables drive unnecessary utilization, contending that access to a clinician at the point of data — not just the data itself — is what changes the demand curve. Brought to you by Ursa Health: Join HTN, Atlas Oncology Partners, and Ursa Health on June 24 at 12pm ET to dive into specialty value-based care. Register to attend and receive the recording: luma.com/htn-ursa-atlas Links referenced Hashem’s LA Times story: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2026-04-25/ai-democratize-medicine-regulation Follow Hashem on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hashem-e-z-87243529a/ For more from Health Tech Nerds, subscribe to our weekly newsletters: https://www.healthtechnerds.com/subscribe

    The tasks AI should take off doctors' plates — and the ones it shouldn't | Hashem Zikry (Counsel Health)
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About

Where we share our weekly news debriefs and discussions with industry experts. These are lo-fi recordings aimed at giving our readers more opportunities to engage with our analysis and a view into some of the conversations that shape it.

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  • Creator
    Kevin O'Leary, Martin Cech
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    89
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Kevin O'Leary, Martin Cech
  • Show Website
    Health Tech Nerds Radio

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