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#534 - Can Cotiviti build the infrastructure layer healthcare's never had? | Ric Sinclair (CEO, Cotiviti)
Description
Ric Sinclair is the CEO of Cotiviti, an enterprise healthcare software and data company that serves hundreds of health plans — including the top 25 in the country — across payment integrity, interoperability, risk adjustment, value-based care, and member engagement, touching coverage for over 300 million patients and members. Cotiviti pairs algorithms and AI with thousands of clinical nurses, MDs, and content experts in a human-in-the-loop model, working across the full administrative ecosystem that moves between payers, providers, patients, and pharma. Ric's core conviction is that healthcare's central problem isn't a data problem or a technology problem — it's a coordination problem, and what the system has never had is a true infrastructure layer to tie it together. Cotiviti isn't trying to pick a side between payers and providers; the bet is that a neutral party sitting in the middle can drive fair, transparent outcomes and pull down the trillion-plus dollars of administrative waste in U.S. healthcare.
We discuss:
- Why healthcare's core problem isn't a data problem or a technology problem — it's a coordination problem, and what it actually takes to build the first infrastructure layer the system has ever had
- The real difference between owning a decade of data assets (and the Edifecs integration) and becoming the infrastructure the industry runs on — and where Cotiviti is in that build today
- How "human in the loop" works at scale — pairing AI with thousands of nurses, MDs, and content experts so every claim is reviewed fairly and problems get predicted before they happen
- Why Ric's answer to AI isn't "cut the 10-person team to 2" — it's "take all 10 and do what 50 could," and what that augment-don't-replace math means for client ROI
- How you build trust and accountability into an AI workflow rather than bolting it on — and who's accountable when models start shaping decisions about claims and care
- How to sit in the neutral middle between payers and providers who don't trust each other — and what it takes to build something both sides actually believe is fair
- What Ric learned as a working drummer in Nashville before healthcare found him — leading without the spotlight, making others better, and why simplicity is a discipline that transfers straight into business
- What a truly differentiated healthcare platform looks like five years out — and the test Ric uses for what "winning" means: a family of five at the dinner table who never have to think about the administrative machinery behind their care
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Brought to you by: Sage Growth Partners — Value-focused strategy and marketing for growth-driven healthcare organizations.
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Where to find Jared:
• X: https://x.com/jaredstaylor
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredstaylor/