In this episode, Health Tech Nerds Kevin and Martin interview Thyme Care President and COO Bradford Diephuis about the U.S. oncology market, highlighting rapid therapeutic advances alongside outdated care delivery and misaligned “buy and bill” incentives that tie practice economics to drug margins.

They discuss Thyme Care’s growth and care model: contracting with risk-bearing payers and entities to manage a claims-attributed oncology population, deploying a 500+ person wraparound care team to reduce avoidable acute care utilization, and partnering voluntarily with oncology practices on high-value drug interventions, waste minimization, and palliative/advanced care planning.

Bradford also outlines contracting approaches using concurrent benchmarks and how Thyme Care uses AI mainly to automate back-office care workflows rather than patient-facing tools.

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Opioid addiction remains a major U.S. public health crisis despite overdose deaths falling back toward 2019 levels, and Ophelia leaders Zach Gray and Dr. Arthur Robin Williams discuss expanding access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT) via a virtual-first model.

Gray describes founding Ophelia after losing someone to overdose and argues MAT resembles long-term medication plus counseling but has been constrained by burdensome rehab-style requirements and limited prescribing capacity. Williams outlines his harm-reduction and research background and explains how new synthetic drugs, online access, and shipping have accelerated risk.

They argue adoption lags due to fragmented care and Medicaid contracting, highlight Pennsylvania’s Center of Excellence as a workable reimbursement model, warn of SAMHSA and Medicaid funding pressures, and note how fee-for-service reimbursement limits innovation and AI adoption.

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Stedi founder Zach Kanter joins fresh off a $50M raise to explain the role of clearinghouses in healthcare, why the Change Healthcare cyberattack forced the industry to pay attention, and why legacy incumbents are incompatible with where healthcare is going.

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Cityblock's CEO Toyin Ajayi joins to make the case that AI should be deployed in Medicaid first, not last. With 60% of healthcare AI investment going toward revenue cycle and risk adjustment, she argues we're using the technology to deepen an inflationary spiral instead of solving the hardest problems. She breaks down how value-based care creates the right incentives to change that.

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The Grand Roundup | March 30, 2026

A packed hour of health tech news: Kevin and Martin recap AHIP (the mood was grim), break down the MA final rates notice dropping any day now, and dig into the peptide/longevity boom reshaping consumer health. Plus two live guest interviews — Toyin Ajayi of Cityblock Health on why AI should be built for Medicaid first, not last, and Zach Kanter of Stedi on their $50M raise and what a billion claims a year looks like. Then a rapid-fire rundown of $581M in funding across 12 deals, including Qualified Health, Doctronic, eMed, and more.

In this episode:

• AHIP recap: MA gamesmanship, no-network plans, and the final rates notice
• Cityblock Health CEO Toyin Ajayi on AI + Medicaid
• Stedi CEO Zach Kanter on clearinghouses, Change Healthcare, and scaling to 1B+ transactions
• $581M in funding across 12 deals
• The peptide/longevity wave and what it means for health tech

Referenced this week: AHIP MMDC, CMS/CMMI, Stedi, Cityblock Health, Qualified Health, Thesis Care, Doctronic, eMed, Adonis, Blossom Health, Clasp, Dimer Health, Prax Health, Certuma, VITL

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Kevin is joined by Ezra Mehlman and Tom Cassels to discuss findings from Health Enterprise Partner’s annual LP survey of ~150 health system and health plan executives.

They highlight widespread but shallow AI adoption which has the potential to widen gaps between best-in-class organizations that redesign processes, and laggards that “slap on” tools.

They also discuss the finding that nearly 90% of providers expect labor costs per discharge to rise in 2026, driven by slow human/organizational change and persistent clinical labor pressures.

They also discuss virtual care’s “next wave” as operationally embedded by specialty (e.g., behavioral health, OB/GYN, orthopedics), and growing payer-provider collaboration via specialty-focused risk/shared-savings models (e.g., kidney, cardiology) and improving interoperability as a path out of adversarial “bot vs bot” dynamics.

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When it comes to the social safety net, America’s public schools are a critical hub for connecting needs with resources, regardless of whether they’re adequately staffed or resourced for this herculean task.

Across the country, administrators, teachers, counselors, and perhaps if they’re lucky, a social worker or a nurse, find themselves helping students and their families navigate housing insecurity, hunger, and a healthcare system barely legible to people who do work in it for a living. Perhaps now more than ever, demand for mental health services is far outstripping supply making it harder for students and the adults who care for them to match kids with care.

I’ve got some personal experience with this from my time as a Teach For America corps member, which has made me especially interested in Marble Health’s mission and vision of personalized therapy for students. Here to talk about the realities of student mental health today, and how Marble Health is working with school counselors and Medicaid to meet this profound need, I’m excited to welcome Jake Sussman, cofounder and CEO of Marble Health.

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Kevin interviews Ashul Govil, Chief Medical Officer and Co-founder of Story Health and a Sutter Health cardiologist, about Story Health’s evolution from virtual cardiology care powered by health coaches to an AI-forward model after joining Innovaccer.

Ashul says their focus has been closing gaps in episodic, brick-and-mortar care by reaching patients at home, publishing outcomes, and now using AI to scale safely amid staffing constraints, including filtering remote monitoring data into actionable clinician decisions.

They discuss Story Health’s partnership with Minneapolis Heart Institute/Allina to extend the CHAMP heart failure clinic model to rural and high-risk post-hospitalization patients, emphasizing workflow redesign and systemwide adoption.

Ashul also covers Story’s fee-for-service and value-based economics, the CMMI ACO Access model’s promise and payment concerns, risks of fragmented care, and why AI’s cost-deflation impact will be gradual due to trust and technical limits.

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