Government Abstract. As healthcare grows extra fragmented and dear, Transcarent CEO Glen Tullman explains why consumer-directed platforms powered by generative AI are rising as the following structural shift. He outlines how WayFinding strikes from search to agentic motion, why aligned incentives matter greater than added options, and the way accountable automation should preserve clinicians firmly within the loop.
Healthcare leaders more and more acknowledge that entry, value, and navigation stay deeply damaged for customers. On this dialog, Transcarent CEO Glen Tullman discusses why consumer-directed care has turn out to be the following frontier, how generative AI allows “magic-like” WayFinding experiences, and what it takes to align incentives round outcomes fairly than quantity. Drawing on a number of public-company management cycles, Tullman frames AI not as a alternative for clinicians however because the orchestration layer that removes friction, improves predictability, and restores belief within the healthcare journey.
AITJ: Glen, you’ve led a number of public corporations and landmark IPOs, however with Transcarent, you’ve chosen to disrupt from the patron’s aspect first. What satisfied you that “consumer-directed care” was the following frontier in healthcare transformation?
Healthcare in the present day is just too typically complicated, advanced, and dear . . . and the general public will let you know that it’s getting worse fairly than higher. Folks don’t know the place to show, what to do subsequent, or who they will belief. And that uncertainty exhibits up on the very moments when people and households are most susceptible. That’s precisely why we constructed Transcarent — and why we’re so happy with WayFinding, which is the primary and solely complete well being and care platform that makes use of AI to empower well being customers.
We’ve used know-how in each different trade to empower customers, enhance the expertise, enhance the standard, and scale back prices . . . journey (Expedia), banking (SoFi), info (Google, ChatGPT), transportation (Uber, Lyft). In healthcare, the center is making it harder than ever. It creates extra friction and is taking all the cash. So, utilizing know-how to deal with all of the challenges . . . an expertise that’s straightforward to make use of, that customers love, that delivers higher high quality and immediate entry to care looks like a no brainer. And that’s what we’ve created at Transcarent. We’re changing the legacy navigators with a subsequent technology platform. WayFinding is designed to assist individuals as they transfer alongside their well being and care journey.
Folks don’t know the place to show, what to do subsequent, or who they will belief.
Glen Tullman
You describe Transcarent’s platform as delivering a “magic-like” well being expertise via generative AI. Are you able to stroll us via a real-world instance of how that magic performs out in a member’s journey?
To paraphrase writer Arthur C. Clarke, know-how, completely utilized, is indistinguishable from magic. After I discuss a “magic-like” expertise, I’m speaking about eradicating friction at each step of an individual’s well being and care journey.
Image a busy working mother juggling a full day of Zoom calls when her youngster comes down with a sore throat and fever. She opens the Transcarent app and describes her youngster’s scenario. The AI Care Assistant asks a few easy follow-up questions, seems to be at her advantages, after which does the onerous half for her: it finds a high-quality, in-network pediatrician and books an appointment on her behalf that matches her schedule or she will chat with a doc in 60 seconds, 24 hours a day.
That’s the ability of WayFinding. Our AI doesn’t simply reply questions — it drives motion by routing customers to the appropriate profit, surfacing excessive‑worth suppliers, and coordinating pressing or advanced care multi functional app. To the patron, it ought to really feel like magic.
The WayFinding platform’s newest replace was revealed at CES2026. What does model 2.0 sign in regards to the evolution of client expectations in healthcare—and what’s subsequent on the roadmap?
With WayFinding 2.0, we’ve moved from search to talk, to the “agentic action era” in healthcare. Customers don’t simply need solutions; they anticipate methods that do issues for them. Like a superb private assistant would. That’s the extent of proactive, personalised service individuals already expertise in different industries . . . and now they will anticipate it in well being and care with Transcarent.
At CES, we launched Superior Symptom Checking (to determine what’s unsuitable), Agentic Scheduling (to search out an accessible, in community doctor and e book an appointment for you), “Total Recall” Reminiscence (to remind you what the physician stated and what care it’s best to have requested), and Customized Well being Paths (to supply month-to-month personalised longevity ideas and care follow-ups). Healthcare is taking part in catch-up to each different trade, however we’re transferring rapidly.
You’ve typically stated healthcare innovation is not only about know-how however fixing issues for actual individuals. What’s one downside that retains you up at night time—and what’s Transcarent doing about it?
The issue that retains me up at night time is straightforward and fixable: individuals delaying or avoiding wanted care as a result of the system is just too complicated, too costly, or each. Within the wealthiest nation on this planet, with the very best docs and hospitals, too many households are nonetheless asking, “Can we afford to go to the doctor?” or “Where do I even start?” These sorts of delays flip manageable points into crises.
We sort out the issue from three angles, and so they all begin with making entry to high-quality healthcare straightforward for customers. First, we give individuals one place to go — not ten apps or a stack of membership playing cards and cellphone numbers. With WayFinding, you’ll be able to simply ask Transcarent what you want and get clear, personalised steering immediately. Second, we don’t simply cease at solutions. We wrap individuals in built-in Care Experiences to allow them to go from a query to precise care with out getting handed off or beginning over. Our platform consists of nearly each main level resolution . . . Hinge and Sword in MSK, Carrot, Progyny, Maven, and Midi in girls’s well being, and a bunch of others. And third, we modify the economics. We convey transparency and accountability to issues like pharmacy and surgical prices, so employers and households are paying for higher outcomes, no more complexity or pointless surgical procedure. Our dedication is to drive high quality and accessibility up, and drive prices down.
Capping COE (Middle of Excellence) case administration charges at $6,500 is a daring transfer. How did you arrive at that quantity—and what structural shift are you hoping this transparency will catalyze throughout the trade?
For years, COE distributors have charged case administration charges that quietly rise with the fee and complexity of surgical procedure. So, the extra you spend, the extra they make. That by no means sat proper with me. We checked out years of efficiency information throughout hundreds of surgical episodes and requested a easy query: What’s a good, flat payment that helps excessive‑contact navigation and scientific oversight with out rewarding greater payments?
By capping all surgical procedure case administration charges at $6,500 and setting costs earlier than surgical procedure, we’re drawing a line within the sand: no extra runaway, percentage-based charges that develop as claims develop. We’re calling on our friends to place outcomes first, make pricing predictable, and rebuild belief in employer healthcare by aligning their enterprise fashions with what’s proper for individuals. And I anticipate the charges to come back down subsequent yr, together with the cap. If we’re going to make care higher that additionally means we’ve got to drive down prices.
Many platforms “add more” to repair healthcare’s complexity. Transcarent goals for subtraction. What did you need to say no to, or strip away, to create a less complicated and smarter expertise?
Conventional navigation stacks up name facilities, portals, level options, and apps, every with its personal login and cellphone quantity. We stated no to that complexity. As a substitute of asking individuals to recollect which hypertension or most cancers resolution vendor to obtain, or which 1‑800 quantity to make use of, we constructed a single entrance door that unifies advantages navigation, scientific steering, and care supply.
Behind the scenes, it’s all built-in. We stripped away duplicative consumption kinds, redundant cellphone bushes, and disconnected vendor hand‑offs, and changed them with one coordinated expertise that routes individuals to excessive‑worth choices and stays with them via decision. By our Expertise Retailer, employers can contract with any of the main level options and have them immediately built-in into their Transcarent expertise, simpler for the employers and simpler for the staff.
Within the time it takes to dial a legacy navigator, you’ll be able to have your reply on our WayFinding platform or be related to one among our level resolution companions. Or discuss with an actual particular person.
You’ve repeatedly emphasised aligning incentives round outcomes fairly than quantity. How tough is it to shift this mindset inside a system nonetheless entrenched in fee-for-service economics?
It’s robust as a result of payment‑for‑service isn’t only a fee mannequin, it’s muscle reminiscence. For many years, individuals have been rewarded for extra procedures, and extra visits with out asking if individuals are really more healthy. Whenever you begin speaking about being paid for prevented surgical procedures, higher remedy plans, fewer ER visits, or decrease pharmacy developments, you’re asking the system to go towards the how it’s designed. Healthcare is the one trade that, regardless of the addition of know-how, has not moved suppliers and customers nearer collectively. As a substitute, the center has grown – as have prices.
The excellent news is that self‑insured employers and ahead‑considering well being plans are already there. They reside in a world of complete value, outcomes, and experiences.
We’ve constructed Transcarent round aligned incentives and efficiency ensures tied to measurable financial savings and improved care. Is it tough? Sure. However when you’ll be able to present that avoiding pointless care and chopping readmissions lowers prices, the dialog shifts from “if we can get there” to “how fast can we get there?”
Healthcare is the one trade that, regardless of the addition of know-how, has not moved suppliers and customers nearer collectively.
Glen Tullman
From Livongo to Transcarent, your work has typically blended proactive, personalised care with highly effective information. How do you strike the appropriate stability between automation and the irreplaceable function of human clinicians?
Our philosophy is straightforward, assist clinicians deal with what they do finest: hear, diagnose, deal with, and reassure. With WayFinding, generative AI interprets questions, checks advantages, surfaces choices, personalizes the expertise, and coordinates subsequent steps. However in the case of scientific judgment, physicians, nurses, and Well being Guides step in. Our know-how lets physicians deal with what they had been educated to do, not search for pharmacies or cope with billing.
Our AI is designed to assist navigation and determination‑making, to not diagnose, deal with, or substitute clinicians, and we use multi-layer security guards, human evaluate, and steady monitoring to maintain it that method.
You spoke about taking part in a CES panel on the 2035 imaginative and prescient for healthcare. If we fast-forward to that yr, what do you hope individuals will say Transcarent helped make inevitable?
When Transcarent launched WayFinding in 2024, we got down to do one thing essentially totally different: put clinically-led, trusted generative AI immediately into the palms of well being customers (our Members) so they may perceive their advantages, get steering, and entry care in as little as 60 seconds in One Place. That work mattered—and it labored. As we speak, greater than 1,000,000 of our Members depend on our WayFinding platform.
By 2035, I hope individuals look again and say Transcarent led the way in which to place customers in charge of their well being and care, and paved the way in which for an expertise that well being customers really like to make use of. And we did so by taking value out of the system.
I consider that, to cite my buddy and possibly the very best enterprise capitalist within the enterprise in the present day, Hemant Taneja, “Technology can create abundance in health and care.”
If employers, well being plans, and households assume their well being and care expertise will likely be personalised, reliable, and on their phrases, then we’ll have executed our job. We’ll have raised expectations so excessive that a greater system wasn’t simply potential; it was unavoidable.
Having led corporations via IPOs, main acquisitions, and paradigm shifts—what’s the one management lesson you’ve carried from Enterprise Programs to in the present day’s AI-driven future at Transcarent?
I proceed to consider that nice corporations begin with nice individuals. I nonetheless consider that and can proceed to steer with that mindset. It’s all about having nice individuals and treating your individuals properly.
I might add, velocity nonetheless issues. Now that could be extra true than ever earlier than. I typically ask the staff, “Why not today?” I actually consider that delivering a greater well being and care expertise is just too essential to attend for. Day by day issues.
Nice corporations begin with nice individuals. And velocity nonetheless issues.
Glen Tullman
