Spotlight: Cassandra Bahre @ Included Health

A spotlight is a short-form interview with a leader in health tech. In this spotlight, you'll hear from Cassandra Bahre, Product Manager for Virtual Visit Revenue at Included Health.

What does Included Health do?

Included Health delivers personalized all-in-one healthcare to support members holistically – mind, body, and wallet. We offer a wide range of services, from care navigation to virtual care, including urgent care, primary care, and behavioral health to claims and member advocacy.

How did you end up working in health tech?

After several years in product consulting across numerous industries, I was personally struck by how insurance and benefits complexity directly influence the patient experience. I learned this firsthand when my child was diagnosed with cancer shortly after her first birthday (today she is cancer-free!). I faced numerous billing issues over the subsequent years, from a prior authorization being denied as not medically necessary to serious overbilling by the practice because prepaid funds weren't correctly applied to the claim balance.

My knowledge of revenue cycle management (RCM) granted me the ability to advocate for myself, but the billing process was still a source of unnecessary trauma during my family’s journey. My personal mission is to help others understand and navigate the healthcare system so they can advocate for themselves, too. Health tech is the perfect place to combine my skills and my goal!

How does your role intersect with revenue cycle management (RCM)?

As the Product Manager for Virtual Visit Revenue at Included Health, I'm the voice of our members and our RCM Operations team in our virtual care business.

For our members, I focus on the billing experience, advocating for cost transparency and reliable, secure payment processing. My goal is to help them focus on getting care without the stress of managing the financial side of their healthcare experience.

For our RCM Ops team, I support revenue realization for virtual visits. I collaborate with cross-functional teams across the entire revenue cycle – from eligibility and registration to coding, claims submission, denial management, and payment posting. By optimizing for an efficient claims experience, we reduce administrative overhead on the member, instilling trust that they can rely on us to effectively manage their benefits. 

When my team and I are successful, we provide high-quality, cost-transparent care to our members and recognize revenue for the business in ways that are scalable and sustainable for our operational and care delivery teams. 

What do you think RCM will look like two years from now?

I believe RCM operations are set for a deep evolution over the next couple of years. We're already seeing a rapid rise in AI usage to automate repetitive, manual tasks like data entry, eligibility verification, and payment posting. And AI is being used on the payer side by claims departments to review, approve, and deny claims, prior authorizations, and more.

This shift will allow RCM teams to focus on more complex, high-value work that requires critical thinking, such as managing complex denial appeals and analyzing data to find revenue leakages. The future of RCM will be a hybrid model where humans and AI work together, with humans providing the crucial oversight and strategic direction.

This shift will also require a renewed focus on data integrity for Health Tech teams. Healthcare data can no longer be managed in silos; it needs to be clean, accurate, and accessible across the entire revenue cycle to build effective AI agents and provide patients with a more efficient and transparent billing experience.

Lastly, I think members – as healthcare consumers – will increasingly expect cost transparency and accuracy for the care they receive. Included Health aims to make that the standard, and that’s always my north star.