Women in Medicine Month: Counterparts in action

In healthcare, transformation rarely comes from vision alone or execution in a vacuum. Meaningful progress and change require both: the ability to see what’s possible and the discipline to bring that vision to life. When those strengths come together through the right leadership, we’re able to fuel innovation and bring it to life.

That balance is what drives our work at Cohere Health . Physician leaders with unique perspectives–and a shared mission to improve patient care and provider experience. 

As Senior Vice President of Clinical Strategy–and an orthopedic surgeon of more than 20 years–I spearhead programs that use clinically trained AI to transform complex healthcare processes and improve care delivery and outcomes.

But strategy alone doesn’t bring change to healthcare. That’s why I’m fortunate to partner with Julia Weinberger, MD , VP, Senior Medical Director of Operations. Julia’s expertise in pulmonology and critical care medicine, combined with her operational leadership, ensures our bold clinical ideas are not only visionary but practical and scalable.

Together, we bring different strengths to the table:

• I focus on the why, making sure our strategy is grounded in clinical reality and patient needs
• Julia shapes the how, turning vision into execution with precision and discipline

This melding of strategy and operations makes Cohere Health’s clinically led model so differentiated. Too often in healthcare, the two functions live in silos. By working side by side, we ensure the successful, scalable delivery of our innovations and impact. 

Working with Julia has taught me the value of operational rigor in turning innovative ideas into execution. My role centers on training and validating our clinical AI, while Julia ensures we have the right physician specialties and staffing in place for requests AI can’t auto-approve, which require timely reviews and human expertise. And we never use AI to deny care, only to help clinicians get to a faster yes for the right care.

Together, this model enables Cohere Health to support over 13 million members and 660,000 providers across the country with faster, more consistent clinical decisions. With our ability to auto-approve up to 90% of authorization requests with responsible AI–and nearly 65 expert physicians on staff–the impacts are significant:

• 93% Provider satisfaction 
• 63% Decrease in denial rates
• 73% Faster access to care

These kinds of partnerships are powerful–not only because of the work we’re making possible, but also because of what they represent. Women leaders, supporting one another, with complementary strengths that together are meaningfully moving the needle in healthcare.

As we celebrate Women in Medicine Month, I’m reminded that leadership is about building with others–and building others up. And when women leaders have the opportunity to lead teams and collaborate, we can help drive change across the entire healthcare industry.