“The future of healthcare begins with a story.
Together, our voices become the change.”
Head of Sales, OpenBots
Gabriel Skelton
Gabriel Skelton is transforming healthcare revenue cycle management by attacking the industry’s 12% denial rate with agentic automation. At OpenBots, he helps providers cut denials, speed up prior authorizations, and lower cost-to-collect with AI-driven automation for eligibility, referrals, and denial management.
His results speak for themselves: a 97% first-pass approval rate, denials under 3%, and cost-to-collect under 2%. Before leading healthcare solutions, Gabriel built automation strategies for financial services and insurance, guiding banks and lenders through digital transformation. He brings hands-on expertise in AI, RPA, and intelligent document processing, paired with a knack for turning inefficient workflows into streamlined systems.
A graduate of Babson College with a Master’s in Entrepreneurial Leadership, Gabriel thrives at the intersection of technology and process improvement. Whether through sales leadership, thought leadership, or direct collaboration, his focus remains the same: eliminating manual drudgery so people can focus on higher-value work.
Professor at Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Ge Bai, PhD
"Thank you, Dr. Haynie, for your leadership and commitment to transforming rural health. The “pour-money-into-hospitals” approach and regulation-heavy, top-down planning have clearly failed. Washington must cut red tape, fund patients directly, and unleash grassroots, clinician-driven innovation and entrepreneurship to improve access for rural Americans."
– Ge Bai
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Dr. Bai is a nationally recognized expert on healthcare accounting, finance, and policy. She serves as Professor of Accounting at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and Professor of Health Policy & Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research and insights shape the national conversation on healthcare reform, with publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Health Affairs.
Dr. Bai’s expertise has reached beyond academia—she has testified before Congress, served as a visiting scholar at the Congressional Budget Office, and written for outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Forbes. Her work is widely cited in regulatory decisions, policy debates, and legal cases. A sought-after teacher, she has earned Johns Hopkins’ Excellence in Teaching Award and continues to guide graduate students in accounting, finance, and health policy.
Through research, testimony, and public engagement, Dr. Bai champions evidence-based, patient-centered solutions to strengthen U.S. healthcare, particularly in underserved and rural communities.
American Family Care, Senior Franchise Training Specialist
Stephanie bridges healthcare systems with human-centered innovation, designing operations and training models that balance efficiency with empathy. With more than a decade of experience across urgent care leadership, corporate training, and franchise education, she specializes in simplifying complex processes, building scalable learning programs, and equipping providers and teams for sustainable success.
As Senior Training Specialist at American Family Care (AFC), Stephanie led franchise training initiatives, operational best practices, and technology rollouts to support franchisees and their clinical teams nationwide. She previously served as Training & Development Manager, where she designed enterprise-wide training programs, streamlined learning management systems, and managed major system implementations. Earlier, she spent eight years in urgent care operations, developing deep expertise in workflows, compliance, revenue cycle management, and team development.
A passionate advocate for learning, mentorship, and technology-driven solutions, Stephanie leverages digital tools to create training content that is both engaging and impactful. Her work extends beyond healthcare into content strategy, web experience optimization, and the psychology of learning—always rooted in the belief that how we teach is just as important as what we teach.
Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Konsuld
Anne Rojas
Anne Rojas is reshaping global healthcare collaboration by bringing curated, AI-powered solutions to the front lines of medicine. As Co-Founder and Chief Growth Officer at Konsuld®, she leads efforts to create a clinician-exclusive platform where experts can collaborate in real time on complex cases, ensuring that innovation and collective insight directly enhance patient care. Konsuld addresses the challenges of modern healthcare—overwhelming data, fragmented knowledge, and limited collaboration opportunities—by integrating AI and crowd-sourced professional expertise to help clinicians make informed decisions that improve patient outcomes.
With more than two decades of experience in medical education and healthcare insights, Anne has held leadership roles across organizations such as MDoutlook, Clinical Care Solutions, and prIME Oncology. An entrepreneur and proven growth leader, Anne combines deep expertise in medical education with a passion for breaking down barriers in healthcare delivery.
Urologist, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Diana Londoño, MD, is one of the 12% of Urologists in the United States who are women—and among just 0.5% who are both women and Latina. For her, being a physician is not just a profession but a privilege: a calling to bring humanity, compassion, and connection into every patient encounter. Her patients echo this in heartfelt reviews, praising her bedside manner, expert care, and the trust she inspires—many even traveling across the country to see her.
Beyond the clinic, Dr. Londoño is a nationally recognized voice in medicine. She has written for KevinMD, Medscape Today, Doximity, Physician Outlook Magazine, Men’s Health, and Thrive Global, and has spoken on podcasts and at institutions including Harvard University, Brown University, University of Texas, Kaiser Permanente, and the Women in Medicine Summit. Her work shines a light on physician wellness, equity, hierarchy in medicine, compassion, and the human side of healthcare.
Her own journey through burnout and recovery led her to become a Certified Life Coach, Reiki Master, and Pranic Healer, equipping her to guide colleagues and patients alike in holistic healing. In 2022, she received the Physician Leadership Award from the Los Angeles County Medical Association for her commitment to advancing physician wellness.
Dr. Londoño believes in hope, humanity, and connection—and holds fast to the conviction that love is always the answer.
PrevRev, Co-Founder
Kris is an innovator at the intersection of law, healthcare, and technology, committed to building models that prevent costs, unlock revenue, and strengthen patient–provider relationships. As Founder of PrevRev, she leads the transformation of the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit—turning one of the most underutilized tools in U.S. healthcare into a revenue generator and prevention engine. By integrating personalized, tablet-based workflows and automated coding, PrevRev creates both immediate financial lift for practices and the foundation for long-term value-based care success.
Previously, Kris founded and led Health Endeavors, a SaaS company specializing in compliance and value-based care technologies, which she scaled and successfully exited in 2024. She has also built expertise as an attorney and associate general counsel at Banner Health, where she specialized in physician alignment, M&A, fraud and abuse, EMTALA, and HIPAA compliance. Alongside healthcare innovation, she has founded and guided ventures in digital forensics and product architecture, always with a focus on strategic innovation and measurable impact.
With more than two decades of experience across healthcare law, SaaS development, compliance, and value-based care, Kris is driven by the belief that the future of healthcare lies in prevention-first, financially sustainable systems. Guided by her motto—Build to Prevent, Market for Health—she empowers providers to thrive in today’s environment while positioning them for success in tomorrow’s outcome-driven models.
“Rural isn’t where the system breaks down. It’s where we learn how to build it better.”
AZOVA, CEO & Founder
Cheryl Lee Eberting, MD
Founder and CEO of AZOVA Health, Dr. Cheryl Lee Eberting is a board-certified dermatologist, entrepreneur, and innovator redefining how healthcare is delivered. Licensed in all 50 states, she blends clinical expertise with technology and commerce to build scalable digital health ecosystems that prioritize prevention, access, and patient engagement.
A former NIH research fellow specializing in eczema and contact dermatitis, Dr. Eberting went on to found multiple successful ventures, including AZOVA, the industry’s only fully connected digital health platform, and Claridei Laboratories, creator of the TrueLipids® and TrueCider® skin care lines for sensitive and atopic skin.
Through AZOVA’s Whole Health model, she is pioneering a connected, affordable approach to care that empowers patients, providers, and payers alike. Her vision is simple yet profound: to make healthcare more accessible, more human, and more sustainable—one connected ecosystem at a time.​​​​
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CyrenCare, CEO
Dr. Kathy Chae is an emergency medicine physician and innovator at the intersection of clinical care, digital health, and human-centered design. Drawing from years of frontline experience in emergency and critical care, she founded CyrenCare to modernize medical history-taking and streamline patient-clinician communication through intuitive, multilingual AI-driven tools that enhance efficiency and empathy in healthcare encounters.
Formerly an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Ajou University and a post-cardiac arrest researcher with the National Research Foundation of Korea, Dr. Chae has led initiatives in resuscitation, acute stroke systems, and quality improvement across emergency departments. Her multidisciplinary background—spanning medicine, machine learning, and design studies at MIT, Sungkyunkwan University, and Hongik University—fuels her vision of creating healthcare systems that are as intelligent as they are compassionate. Through CyrenCare, she is redefining the patient journey—one conversation at a time.
“What you see here is more than faces and titles—it’s a movement of people determined to make healthcare human again, one voice and one community at a time.”
DohRx, National Operation Advisor
Brett McCarthy, MBA
"Small town practices are often at a disadvantage. Large, private equity backed groups have teams, technology, and resources that independents rarely get. In rural communities, doctors and staff are doing the same work with a fraction of the support.
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At DohRx, we are working to close that gap. We bring the same revenue protection tools to small practices that big groups rely on, combining AI with human expertise so rural offices are not leaving money on the table. Every recovered dollar helps them care for patients and support their teams.
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Rural practices deserve the same tools and opportunities as anyone else. "
Nohj Helix, Founder
John Ehiagwina
John is a medical biochemist and lifelong health enthusiast who believes technology can be a bridge for communities too often left behind. He has led grassroots efforts bringing people together for health and development, and he continues to explore how simple tools can spark big change. With a strong voice on social media and in local communities, John is dedicated to rethinking how we care for one another and making health access a reality for all.
Fractional CMO, Healthcare & Tech Marketing Strategist
Linda Stotsky
Linda is an award-winning healthcare technology marketing strategist with over two decades of experience helping organizations translate complex ideas into measurable impact. As a fractional CMO, she partners with startups, B2B brands, and mission-driven organizations to advance digital health, interoperability, and rural health initiatives. With deep expertise in brand storytelling, content strategy, and demand generation, she builds roadmaps that elevate visibility and drive adoption. Passionate about bridging innovation and equity, Linda helps teams bring technology to life in ways that strengthen access and outcomes for patients and providers in rural communities.
Clinical Research Administration, MBA, RN
Rania Bitar
"Every patient, whether in a large hospital or a rural clinic, deserves safe, accessible, and high-quality healthcare. Rural communities face shortages of healthcare professionals, long waits, limited access, and inadequate facilities—leading to delayed diagnoses and poorer outcomes. AI can help by saving providers time, supporting remote monitoring, enhancing telehealth, and offering 24/7 patient support, but it also requires investment in training, infrastructure, and connectivity. The bottom line: if used well, AI can bring people closer together, helping providers connect, patients feel seen, and communities receive the care they deserve."
“When we rethink rural, we see more than distance—we see possibility. We see innovation reaching every farmhouse, every clinic, every road that leads to better health.”
Stand Up (for) Doctors, Founder
Kim Downey
Kim is the founder of Stand Up (for) Doctors!, a platform dedicated to amplifying the voices of physicians, healthcare professionals, and patients by sharing their struggles, triumphs, and passions. Through her YouTube channel and Substack, she shines a light on the human side of medicine—exploring burnout, moral injury, and the moments of connection that keep healthcare meaningful. A physical therapist and three-time cancer survivor, Kim also serves as a Community Ambassador for Medicine Forward and represents the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes’ Foundation and Clinician Burnout Foundation. Her mission is to foster connection, advocacy, and systemic change so that healthier doctors can provide better care for healthier patients.
NeoMIND-AI, Co-Founder
James Barry, MD, MBA
Dr. Barry is a physician-leader, AI strategist, and healthcare innovator dedicated to improving neonatal and pediatric care. As Medical Director of a neonatal ICU, his quality initiatives have cut mortality rates in half and reduced discharge-related failures by 40%. He is also the founder of NeoMIND-AI, a collaborative of physicians, data scientists, and informaticists working to ensure AI in pediatric medicine is safe, effective, ethical, and equitable. Through this work, Dr. Barry is shaping the future of care for some of the most vulnerable patients.
3PMobile, CEO
Peter Cranstone
Peter is the CEO of 3PMobile, where he is reimagining digital engagement and building low-cost growth engines for web-based businesses. His journey began as a career airline pilot, but a personal tragedy inspired him to teach himself coding and dedicate his life to creating innovative, practical solutions that truly work before seeking investment. With over three decades of experience turning invention into innovation, Peter has become a pioneer in harnessing digital ecosystems to empower both businesses and consumers. Today, he leads with resilience and vision, committed to reshaping the web into a more accessible, valuable, and human-centered space.
360° Health, Co-Host
Dr. Mantell is co-host of 360° Health, a weekly broadcast on streaming platforms and Salem Media’s KCBQ AM/FM radio, featuring leading experts in lifestyle medicine and mental health.
A nationally recognized Mental Health Architect, Dr. Mantell specializes in Rational Emotive Behavior and Cognitive Behavioral Coaching, helping people build resilience, clarity, and emotional wellbeing. He has served as Chief Psychologist for the San Diego Police Department and Children’s Hospital of San Diego, taught at UCSD Medical School, and advised organizations from the FBI to the U.S. Congress on trauma, stress, and wellness.
An accomplished speaker and author, Dr. Mantell has appeared on Oprah, Nightline, Larry King Live, and The Today Show. Named one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Health & Fitness, he continues to inspire audiences worldwide through his books, keynote talks, and wellness leadership.
“Rural is not the edge of progress—it’s the frontier of possibility. When we invest in rural communities, we’re not just closing gaps, we’re opening doors to innovation, resilience, and human connection that the world urgently needs.”
Lumeris, Vice President, TOM Evangelist
Doug Rogers
Doug is a seasoned go-to-market leader with more than 20 years of experience spanning SaaS, Digital Health, GovTech, and FinTech. At the intersection of Conversational AI and patient engagement, Doug has built a reputation as a transformative strategist who drives growth through innovative market approaches, high-performance teams, and impactful client partnerships.
Throughout his career, Doug has led comprehensive go-to-market functions—including sales, marketing, operations, client management, and proposal development—while consistently delivering measurable results across diverse markets. He has launched innovative products, scaled organizations, secured major contracts, and opened new markets, all with a focus on simplifying complex systems and advancing technology in healthcare and government.
As founder and host of The Counterweight podcast, Doug champions conversations that challenge conventional thinking and spotlight opportunities for systemic change. His leadership style is rooted in empowerment, collaboration, and communication, enabling teams to exceed expectations and drive innovation with purpose.​​​
Scott W. Dowling Insurance Brokerage, Managing Director
Scott Dowling
Scott brings more than 30 years of leadership and expertise in the insurance industry, with a career spanning underwriting, regulatory navigation, claims, product development, and strategic partnerships. As the founder of Scott W. Dowling Insurance Brokerage LLC, he has worked extensively with carriers, associations, and affinity groups to develop innovative products, negotiate pricing, and create sustainable non-dues revenue streams. His specialized focus on Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) has made him a nationally recognized educator, coach, and advisor, helping organizations and individuals ensure their HSAs are structured for maximum value.
Beyond his brokerage work, Scott is the host of a top-rated podcast on HSAs and insurance, a sought-after speaker, and an educator known for bringing clarity to complex systems. Guided by the spirit of Dead Poets Society’s Mr. Keating, he challenges others to see problems—and solutions—from new perspectives. Bright, energetic, and relentlessly curious, Scott is committed to helping organizations and individuals alike “find their voice for success.”
Acadia Healthcare, Senior Physician Talent Acquisition
Andrew Diffenbaugh
"The physician shortage in rural America is longstanding and severe: while about 20% of Americans live in rural communities, only 9% of physicians practice there. Patients outside of urban centers face higher rates of chronic illness, suicide, and maternal mortality, and the gap compared to city populations continues to widen. Yet, rural practice offers physicians unique opportunities to grow professionally, take on leadership roles sooner, and form closer, more personal connections with patients and colleagues.
Beyond professional rewards, rural medicine provides tangible financial and lifestyle benefits, from loan repayment and competitive salaries to lower living costs, shorter commutes, and easy access to the outdoors. While rural practice carries challenges—such as fewer resources, heavier workloads, and lifestyle trade-offs—for those seeking to expand their skills and make a visible impact where they are most needed, it can be one of the most fulfilling career paths in medicine."
SnapOS, Semantic Architect & Founder
Marko Chalupa
Marko is the founder of SnapOS, where he designs resilient semantic architectures for AI, governance, and critical systems. His work focuses on building audit layers that prevent collapse when systems drift—developing structures that hold meaning and make trust measurable. Through concepts like Drift Intensity, Snap Return, and Drift Window, Marko helps organizations detect deviation, restore coherence, and create infrastructures that endure under stress.
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With a background in computer science, system design, and formal models, Marko has published widely on epistemic systems, LLM alignment, and structural collapse prevention. He speaks and writes internationally on drift resilience, AI ethics, and audit-based system design. At the core of his work is a simple but powerful conviction: that foresight, when grounded in rigorous auditability, can turn fragile innovations into stable, trusted systems.
“Rural health is often defined by what’s missing, but its true strength lies in resilience and community. With the right tools and voices, it can lead innovation that benefits everyone.”
“The future of healthcare will be defined not by the size of our cities, but by our ability to care for the most remote among us.”
“The future of healthcare won’t be discovered in a lab or a boardroom — it will be proven in the places that have been overlooked the longest. Rural America isn’t a gap to fill; it’s the ground truth we build from.”
JFT PRG LLC, Principal
John Travis
With over four decades of experience in healthcare information technology — including nearly 37 years at Cerner (now Oracle Health) — John is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the intersection of health IT, regulation, and innovation.
Since the mid-1990s, John has helped providers and technology organizations navigate the evolving landscape of federal policy, from HIPAA to the latest regulations governing healthcare AI. At Cerner, he led major initiatives to ensure the company’s platforms empowered clients to comply with every major federal requirement spanning privacy, interoperability, and quality reporting — efforts that defined the modern era of electronic health records.
John’s leadership has extended nationally through his service on federal task forces under the ONC Federal Advisory Committees (during both the Obama and Trump administrations), and as co-chair of the HL7 Medical Records/Information Management Technical Committee. He has also contributed to key collaborations with CHIME, AMA, AHA, AMIA, AHIMA, and HFMA, and served as chair of the CommonWell Health Alliance Government Affairs Committee.
Today, John leads his own consultancy, advising HIT companies, startups, and provider organizations on the role of health information technology in compliance, interoperability, and AI regulation. A licensed CPA in Missouri and Fellow of HFMA, John has served as president and volunteer leader across both the Heart of America (Kansas City) and Greater Heartland (Missouri) chapters.
His career reflects a rare combination of policy expertise, operational insight, and ethical stewardship — precisely the qualities that guide Rethinking Rural’s mission to make technology trustworthy, transparent, and human-centered.
Healthcare Survival Kit, Founder
Kim Feth, BSW
Kimberlie Williams-Feth is a nationally recognized patient advocate, navigator, and founder of Healthcare Survival Kit, an organization dedicated to helping families cut through the chaos of an increasingly complex healthcare system.
Before founding her company, Kim spent 13 years as a medical social worker in hospitals and home health, witnessing firsthand the confusion, exhaustion, and inequities families face when navigating care. But it was her own family’s medical crises — a son’s injury, her husband’s complications, and countless sleepless nights fighting denials and delays — that transformed her professional experience into a personal mission.
When the system came for her family, Kim refused to surrender. Instead, she turned that hardship into purpose, building Healthcare Survival Kit to give patients and caregivers the clarity, confidence, and tools to push back. Her work combines professional expertise, lived experience, and unfiltered honesty, empowering people to make informed choices and demand the care they deserve.
“I didn’t choose to become a healthcare advocate — the broken system left me no choice. So I built what I wish my own family had: a roadmap through the chaos, and the grit to never give up.”
PYXGEN, Founder & Senior Integration Specialist
Lowell Buschert
Lowell is a seasoned healthcare IT consultant with more than a decade of experience helping healthcare organizations structure, integrate, and analyze their clinical data — from large U.S. hospital networks to regional clinics and specialty practices. As the founder of Pyxgen, a U.S.-registered company, he partners with hospitals, health systems, and specialty providers across North America to modernize data flows and enhance decision-making.
His expertise spans HL7, FHIR, and Python-based data engineering, enabling seamless interoperability, analytics, and regulatory reporting. Earlier in his career, Lowell contributed to major initiatives within the British Columbia Ministry of Health, helping to modernize PharmaCare, develop data warehouses for Continuing Care, and establish HL7 standards for health claims and billing — work that deepened his understanding of both the technical and operational realities of healthcare integration at scale.
Today, Lowell advises healthcare organizations on transforming raw clinical data into actionable insights through custom-built ETL pipelines, automation, and analytics infrastructure. His mission is to bridge the gap between data and care — helping clinicians, researchers, and administrators turn information into improvement.
“Rural healthcare is vital to the nation — it’s about taking care of the folks who feed the nation. Technology should serve them on equal ground with any urban hospital. My focus is on helping clinicians use their own data to see what’s really happening — to turn complexity into clarity and insight.”
Your Company, Your Title
Your Name
Rethinking Rural was born from a simple but radical idea: rural America isn’t the problem — it’s the proving ground. For too long, rural communities have been treated as afterthoughts in policy, philanthropy, and innovation. Yet the very challenges they face — scarcity, distance, limited resources — are exactly what make them the ultimate test lab for solutions that can scale anywhere.
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Our mission is to build a living ecosystem of trust, technology, and human stories that transforms how innovation reaches and serves the people who need it most. Through a pipeline of Voices → Collaboratives → Navigator, we turn real-world insight into actionable proof — helping innovators, investors, and policymakers validate tools under rural constraints before scaling them nationally.
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Rethinking Rural stands at the intersection of empathy and evidence, storytelling and systems change. We’re building not just a movement, but a framework for ethical innovation — one that measures progress by trust restored, not just data collected.
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“The future of healthcare won’t be found in the cities that already have it — it will be proven in the towns that still believe in each other.”
— Holland Haynie, MD
