Advertise on podcast: Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

This episode recorded live at the Becker’s Spring 2026 Payer Issues Roundtable features Christina Ott, Chief Strategy Officer, Quartz, discussing how her organization is tackling rising costs by rethinking the payer role, improving care navigation, and reducing friction for members. She also shares insights on aligning digital investments and using AI to streamline workflows, enhance communication, and create a more seamless healthcare experience. In collaboration with Hippocratic AI.

This episode recorded live at the Becker’s Spring 2026 Payer Issues Roundtable features Robert Holzer, Strategy and Innovation Leader, Next Horizon Innovations, Martin Luethi, Chief Technology Officer, Quest Analytics, & Bob Tavernier, Solution Executive, Quest Analytics. The conversation explores how provider data has evolved from a compliance requirement into a strategic driver of AI readiness, network performance, regulatory alignment, and member trust, emphasizing the need for clean data, strong governance, and scalable infrastructure. This episode is sponsored by Quest Analytics.

This episode recorded live at the Becker’s 16th Annual Meeting features Jennifer Jones, Director of Clinical Solutions, Noom. Here, she explores how GLP-1s should be viewed as part of chronic disease management rather than a pharmacy-only cost issue, and how payer strategies that combine medication access with behavior change programs can improve long-term clinical outcomes and deliver more sustainable ROI. This episode is sponsored by Noom Health.

In this episode, Sundar Srinivasan, President – Health Plan & Life Sciences, NTT DATA, discusses how payer organizations are moving from AI pilots to scaled deployments, focusing on high impact use cases, operational transformation, and the importance of trust, governance, and measurable ROI. This episode is sponsored by NTT DATA.

In this episode, Mike Stuart, President and CEO of Blue Shield of California, shares how his finance and provider background shapes a systems approach to improving health outcomes, strengthening provider partnerships, and addressing rising healthcare costs. He also discusses the growing impact of chronic disease and why collaboration across the healthcare ecosystem is critical to making care more affordable and accessible.

In this episode, Steve Yurjevich, Chief Executive Officer of Optum Insight’s Payer Market and a member of the American Heart Association Executive Leadership Team, joins the podcast to discuss rising healthcare costs and the growing adoption of AI across the payer landscape. He shares how the industry is shifting from pre-pay models to true avoidance strategies, focusing on preventing unnecessary care and improving overall system efficiency.

In this episode, Jeff Bak, President and Chief Executive Officer of Imagine360, joins the podcast to discuss improving health literacy for seniors and the role it plays in driving better outcomes. He shares how proactive care strategies and smarter use of utilization data can help create a more effective, patient-centered healthcare system.

In this episode, Rob Duffy, Chief Technology Officer at HealthEdge, explores how modern cloud infrastructure and deeply integrated AI can help health plans manage rising complexity, reduce administrative costs, and scale operations. He shares why platform consolidation and embedded AI are critical to staying competitive and sustaining performance in a rapidly evolving healthcare landscape. This episode is sponsored by HealthEdge.

In this episode, Alexandra Anderson, Head of Health Plan Sales & Partnerships at Color, explores how proactive, personalized screening and integrated care pathways can improve early cancer detection and reduce total cost of care for cancer. She shares insights on Color's approach to identifying risk & closing screening gaps, increasing member engagement, and the importance of timely, proactive interventions along the cancer care continuum. This episode is sponsored by Color.

In this episode, Pankhuri Sharma, Strategy and Operations Leader at Humana, joins the podcast to discuss gaps between population health strategy and real-world outcomes. She shares key priorities for effective population health programs and offers practical advice for emerging leaders navigating the evolving healthcare landscape.

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.

In this episode, Jhana Spence, Senior Vice President of Strategy at CERIS, discusses the shift toward proactive payment integrity and what it means to “move left” in the claims lifecycle. She explores how health plans are leveraging data, analytics, and automation to reduce financial leakage, improve provider relationships, and build accuracy before payment goes out the door.  This episode is sponsored by CERIS.

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.