Breaking Open the Black Box of Healthcare: A Conversation with CEO Mark Newman | Ep 1036

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Breaking Open the Black Box of Healthcare: A Conversation with CEO Mark Newman

Podcast: The Digital Executive by Coruzant Technologies
Episode: 1036
Guest: Mark Newman, CEO and Co-founder of NOMI Health
Date: March 28, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this high-impact 10-minute episode, Mark Newman discusses his journey from pioneering AI-driven talent assessment at HireVue to co-founding NOMI Health, where he’s working to overhaul America’s healthcare system. The conversation centers on making healthcare transparent, direct, and data-driven for employers, providers, and patients. Newman shares NOMI Health’s approach to tackling the industry's systemic problems—especially the opaque and cumbersome financial processes—and highlights both cultural and technological strategies that can enable profound industry-wide change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From AI & HR Tech to Healthcare Innovation (01:14–03:21)

• Transition Motivation: Newman’s move from HireVue to NOMI Health was rooted in a passion for HR and improving the worker experience both at work and in life.
  • Quote (01:43, Mark Newman):

    “Everything I do is about working with business owners and HR to transform the worker experience.”

• Impact and Meaning: Building HireVue empowered people to achieve dream jobs, while NOMI Health aims to solve “supposedly sticky and unfixable problems” of U.S. healthcare using lessons and technologies from other industries.
  • Quote (02:46, Mark Newman):

    “I’ve been able to build NOMI for the last six years where, you know, we take something as broken as U.S. Healthcare and make it affordable, make it accessible, make it usable... and it’s working.”

2. Exposing and Fixing the ‘Black Box’ of Healthcare (03:21–05:58)

• Systemic Problems Identified:
  • The lack of data transparency for employers and the convoluted, delayed payment process for providers.
  • Quote (03:39, Mark Newman):

    “Employers don’t know what they spend their money on, what they’re buying, what they pay for, who needs what… You want to break open that black box.”

• NOMI’s Approach:
  • Acts as an “operating system” for self-insured employers, enabling them to buy healthcare directly, with real-time payments and transparent data.
  • Compares healthcare purchasing and payments to seamless experiences in other industries (like travel), highlighting the inefficiency of healthcare’s processes.
• Potential Impact:
  • By simplifying provider payments and increasing transparency, healthcare costs could drop by 30–50%.
  • Quote (05:51, Mark Newman):

    “If you make it really simple for a doctor to get paid... Healthcare costs somewhere between 25, 30 and 50% less than it does today.”

3. Building a Culture of Transparency with Technology (06:38–08:12)

• Role of Technology:
  • Real-time analytics and transparency are critical. NOMI Health’s analytics platform already serves 15 million lives and 1,500 employers.
  • Emphasizes that employers are the true buyers and owners of healthcare data.
• Stakeholder Alignment:
  • Technology isn’t just about clinical care; it’s necessary for transparency in payment and business operations.
  • Quote (07:32, Mark Newman):

    “An employer is the true buyer of healthcare here and it is their data and they get to do whatever they want with it… Unless we solve the black box of healthcare problem at its core, how can we address and solve anything else?”

• Cultural Commitment:
  • States that NOMI Health will “pound the table” and advocate for the employer’s rights at every level of government.

4. Trends and Innovations Shaping the Next Decade in Healthcare (08:40–10:51)

• Beyond Buzzwords:
  • While AI, machine learning, and cloud technologies are impactful, the real driver for change is relentless stakeholder demand—patients, employers, and HR collectively saying “enough’s enough.”
• Industry Comparison:
  • Contrasts healthcare with other sectors that have streamlined digital payment and data solutions, marveling at outdated practices like using paper checks and even CD-ROMs for data transfer in healthcare.
  • Quote (09:28, Mark Newman):

    “The most important emerging trend… is the fire, the anger, the… ‘let’s end this nonsense’ belief that is now coming from individuals, patients, families, business owners, HR leaders, everyone that says, you know what, enough’s enough. It’s time to change this industry.”

• Vision:
  • Predicts imminent and profound change, with technology and demand for transparency aligning to push healthcare into a long-overdue digital transformation.
  • Quote (10:32, Mark Newman):

    “These are all digital tools and technologies… but it goes along with consumers...pounding the table saying it’s time for change. And I believe we’re at that cusp, that moment…”

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Memorable Quotes

• On the systemic inefficiencies in healthcare payments:
  “Only in America can a doctor show up to an appointment, give you the care that you came in to ask for, and they have no idea when they get paid, how they get paid, who they get paid by, who they’re supposed to be collecting from…” (04:20, Mark Newman)

• On the universality of digital, seamless payments elsewhere:
  “When you swipe a credit card, it goes through 400 plus systems in less than three seconds. Yet in healthcare, from the time that you go to the doctor, to the time that the bill is processed... can be two to nine months…” (03:52, Mark Newman)

• On the urgency for change:
  “Everything else in our personal life can be transparent and easy to understand what you buy, what you pay for and how to do it. Why not in healthcare?” (09:40, Mark Newman)

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Key Timestamps

• [01:43] – Mark Newman on the passion that drives his career transitions
• [03:39] – Diagnosing healthcare’s ‘black box’ and NOMI Health’s operating system solution
• [05:51] – The case for dramatically reduced healthcare costs via transparency
• [07:32] – Employer data ownership and the necessity for business transparency
• [09:28] – The real trend: stakeholder-driven demand for industry-wide reform

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Conclusion

Mark Newman’s conversation delivers a concise but powerful argument for why and how U.S. healthcare must embrace radical transparency, direct payments, and business process innovation—leveraging both advanced technology and cultural pressure from stakeholders. Drawing on both deep industry insight and an outsider’s perspective, Newman expresses palpable urgency for change and highlights NOMI Health’s practical efforts already underway. The episode is both a call to action and a glimpse into the near future of a potentially transformed healthcare industry.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Welcome to Coruscant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive podcast. Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today's guest is Mark Newman. Mark Newman is the co founder and CEO of NOMI Health on a mission to rebuild America's healthcare system to serve all stakeholders, providers, employers and patients. A recognized healthcare innovator and entrepreneur, Newman previously founded and built Higher View into the world's largest provider of AI driven talent assessment solutions before its acquisition by the Carlyle Group. His commitment to improving the healthcare system stems from a desire to address systemic issues that have long plagued the industry under his leadership. Since its inception in 2019, Nomi Health has focused on creating a more direct and transparent healthcare experience, reducing and and organization spend by over 30% per patient while increasing a provider's payments. Through Nomi Health, Neumann continues to advocate for a more efficient, service centered approach to healthcare that prioritizes known costs for employers, zero out of pocket for patients and near real time payment for providers. Well, good afternoon Mark, welcome to the show.

[A]

Thanks for having me.

[B]

Absolutely. I appreciate you making the time. I know it's you're an hour behind us. You're in Salt Lake City, I'm in Kansas City. So doing a little bit of traversing the globe today, not a whole lot, but appreciate you making the time, jumping on. And Mark, I'm going to jump into your first question. Your career has taken you from building the world's largest provider of AI driven talent assessment solutions at HireVue to founding Nomi Health. What inspired you to make this shift and how have your tech experiences shaped your approach to healthcare innovation?

[A]

Yeah, most definitely. So the similarity between building HireVue, which was all focused on working with HR organizations to totally transform how they build their teams, and building KNOWMI Health, which is totally focused on serving HR organizations around how they buy their benefits, is is there's one common factor there. I love hr. I love the human resources function. I love the idea of building companies and teams and supporting them both in their work life as well as in like their non work life and how to make that better. Right. If we can have a great work life, you can have a great non work life. If you can be supportive and enabled in your non work life, it turns out you can have a great work life and achieve your potential. And that's just a real passion of mine. And so everything I do is about working with business owners and HR to transform the worker experience.

[B]

That's awesome. And at the end of the day, what I heard out of your message, I know you focus on HR and building great teams, but you really love people. And at the end of the day, if you can build a culture that engages employees, make the culture a better place, having that work life balance is always great. So I appreciate that.

[A]

Oh no. And what's so interesting about that is like I got the privilege of building HireVue, which got people into the jobs of their dreams that they never thought they would get because we said you're not profiles are not resumes, your stories, ideas and experiences. And you know, I wasn't quite sure what, what would be even more meaningful. Right? And now I've been able to build NOMI for the last six years where, you know, we take something as broken as US Healthcare and make it affordable, make it accessible, make it usable, and it's adopting so many of the same experiences and technologies from other places to, you know, supposedly sticky and unfixable problems of US healthcare. And, and it's working.

[B]

That's awesome. Again, another entrepreneur making the world a better place. So mark your next question here. Knowmi Health aims to create a more direct and transparent healthcare experience. What do you see as the most critical systematic issues in America's healthcare today and how is NOMI Health uniquely positioned to address them?

[A]

For me at nomi, you need to think about us as an operating system for self insured employers to buy all their healthcare directly, right? And if you think about how you buy things in your personal life, we swipe a credit card, we book a ticket, flying to Minneapolis tonight, comes up with weather, hotels, rental cars, you know what I can go do activities, you name it, right? And when you swipe a credit card, it goes through 400 plus systems in less than three seconds. Yet in healthcare, from the time that you go to the doctor, to the time that the bill is processed, to when you get it, to when you can pay, to when they figure out who's to who's going to pay them and have they documented it to justify getting paid. And all these various things can be two to nine months, it can be wrong 30% of the time, it can be denied 40% of the time. And so for me, what I think are the two most systemic issues around why US healthcare is such a good walking disaster that costs us so much money is first, the lack of transparency in data. Employers don't know what they spend their money on, what they're buying, what they pay for, who needs what, what are gaps, what are this? And you want to break open that black box. And we do that every day with our analytics platform. And second, we don't want to keep addressing the complexity of figuring out how to get paid in healthcare. We want to simplify how to get paid in healthcare. Only in America can a doctor show up to an appointment, give you the care that you came in to ask for, and they have no idea when they get paid, how they get paid, who they get paid by, who they're supposed to be collecting from. Have they justified with their notes the ability to get paid? Right? When are they going to do it? What's going to be denied? All the nonsense we hear about and deal with in our personal lives. Put your hat on for a second and think of that in any other business. A restaurant owner, a store owner, a banker, whatever it might be. And the only thing that those doctors can do is price in the risk of non payment. So they just have to keep increasing prices. But it turns out if you make it really simple for a doctor to get paid, here's the work you did and we pay you for it right now. And we do it in a data driven, transparent way. Healthcare costs somewhere between 25, 30 and 50% less than it does today. So that's our entire focus. Open up the black box. Make it really simple for a provider to get paid for the work that they do and do it in a way that transforms healthcare costs in America by cutting them 30 to 50%.

[B]

That's awesome. There's so much in. Just so you know, Mark, I was in the healthcare space for many, many years as a technology leader, so I saw this stuff firsthand. And you're right, most industries are transparent. It's pretty simple to get paid. Obviously not in healthcare. It's probably the most regulated system in, in America and we need to fix that. And I appreciate you working hard to get that opened up so we can do better for our providers and for our patient care and save a few dollars in the meantime. Mark, transparency is a core tenet at NOMI Health. What strategies have you implemented to foster a culture of openness and trust among all stakeholders? And what role does technology play in this process?

[A]

Technology to solving this problem is core to everything, right? Think about healthcare data from like the, your medical records and what's going on. But when we think about healthcare, we picture that magical moment right when that doctor delivers care to you or that loved one that's seeking it and you figure it out. But as you know, there's like the delivery of care and then there's the business of health. And we think that bringing transparency to the business of healthcare is so key to transforming the system to something that we can actually afford and access. Right. And so we have over 15 million lives on our analytics platform already today, where it's almost 1500 employers who say, listen, we buy all this healthcare, we want to understand what we spend, where we spend, what we spend it on and how we can do it differently and what are the gaps and problems that are either being addressed or unaddressed that people need. And we take a very aggressive approach here that says, listen, an employer is the true buyer of healthcare here and it is their data and they get to do whatever they want with it. Right. To take that insight and turn it into action, we will pound the table, we will fight the fight. We will do that on a state, on a local, state and federal level. And you know, because unless we solve the black box of healthcare problem at its core, how can we address and solve anything else? And so we want to bring that, make that open, make that open for anyone to understand, bring permanence and value and visibility to benchmarks and how you stack and how you set up to everyone else what you should be paying, what you shouldn't be paying. Right. For care that's going on. And you know, and just like I keep saying, break open that black box, which we like to do every single day.

[B]

That's amazing. Thank you. You did highlight leveraging that technology to bring that transparency to healthcare through analytics. Of course, one way to do that to the 15 million healthcare subscribers that you mentioned just a minute ago. So I really appreciate that. Mark, the last question of the day. As an investor and board member shaping the future of healthcare and technology, what emerging trends or innovations do you believe will have the most profound impact on the industry over the next decade?

[A]

Absolutely. In terms of trend that I believe will drive, have the most impact on the industry or on the healthcare industry over the next decade. Everyone would like to think, oh, you know, it's, it's machine learning, it's AI, it's cloud, it's this, it's that. And those will all play a role. Absolutely. I mean, there is so many, so much garbage work that has to be done. Like when you spend all your time in healthcare on the technology side, like the idea that there's a hundred billion dollar industry called revenue cycle management in US Healthcare that does nothing but help people figure out how to get paid is absurd. Right? Like, and you can absolutely use digital tools to transform and change that process. But I actually think the most important emerging trend that will have the most profound impact on the industry over the Next decade is the fire, the anger, the, you know, the, the let's end this nonsense belief that is now coming from individuals, patients, families, business owners, HR leaders, everyone that says, you know what, enough's enough. It's time to change this industry. Everything else in our personal life can be transparent and easy to understand what you buy, what you pay for and how to do it. Why not in healthcare? In a 5 trillion dollar industry, everything in our personal life can be digital and reconcilable and kind of going and doing this from like a, you know, a business, whether it's accounting, invoicing, whatever it might be, why not in healthcare? Oh, because we deal with, you know, 60% of our payment still being in paper check. Right. Recently one of my board members that invests in nothing but global technologies went to have an MRI of his knee and to go to another location had to get a CD rom, a CD ROM to bring that data around. Like no data should be wildly interoperable. It should transfer for you and it should be yours and it should go with you. And I feel like, you know, these are all digital tools and technologies and AI and machine learning and mobile and whatever that we should expect. But it goes along with consumers and business owners and HR leaders pounding the table saying it's time for change. And I think, and I believe we're at like that cusp that moment and we're very excited for it.

[B]

I agree. Being in healthcare technology a long time, Mark, I can't wait till something is disrupted in that space because it just seems like every other industry is, has been disrupted, being disrupted, but healthcare needs to be disrupted in a good way in favor of the patient and of course those providers that provide a lot of, lot of care and long hours. I just can't believe we, we spend that much money in revenue cycle management just trying to figure out who's getting paid and who should be paid, that sort of thing. I love the fact that you're working hard on this transparency. I think it's important. Mark, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.

[A]

Thanks for having me.

[B]

Bye for now.