The IDAA Hub Podcast: AI in Finance & Healthcare

In this new Innovation & Startups series, we break down Abridge — one of the fastest-growing AI startups in healthcare today. 📧 Connect with Host  Host Deepti Kalghatgi : https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepti-kalghatgi/ 🌐 Visit: https://idaahub.com We cover the real founding story (it started with a cardiologist, a patient, and one sentence about dignity), how Abridge grew faster than long-stan...

15 years ago, getting your medical records meant visiting the hospital, signing forms, and walking out with a photocopied stack of 5,000 pages. Today you can import the same data into an LLM and ask it what's wrong with you. That shift — and everything in between — is what Part 2 of this conversation is about. In this episode, IDAAHub Podcast host Deepti continues her conversation with Dr. Ti...

What if the healthcare system was never built to make you healthier? In Part 1 of our conversation with Dr. Timothy Martens — congenital heart surgeon at Northwell Health, Director of Data Strategy & Innovation at Cohen Children's Medical Center, PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and General Partner at Picap Fund — we get into the structural truth most clinicians won't say out loud: the...

Hospitals lost $48 billion in revenue in 2025 from claim denials alone — a 25% increase year over year. In this episode we break down why Cerner EMR hospitals are structurally exposed to this problem, and how AI innovation is being built to fix it. On April 22, 2026, Community Health Systems reported a $58 million net loss for Q1 — on nearly $3 billion in revenue. Leadership pointed to two compoun...

Banks are years ahead of credit unions in AI adoption — but why? And what does it actually take for a credit union to catch up? In this episode of the IDAA Hub Podcast, host Deepti sits down with Nupur Daruka — a credit union technology executive with 20+ years spanning fintech, e-commerce, and banking — to answer exactly that.  From a crisis-driven legacy code migration to building real-time frau...

Big vendors have the brand name. The sales team. The client list. So why credit unions walk away from all of that — and bet on a startup instead? Because brand names don't customize for you. Startups do. In Part 2 of this IDAA Hub Podcast episode, host Deepti and Nupur Daruka — credit union tech executive with 20+ years in fintech — pull back the curtain on the vendor decisions, ROI framework...

What makes an AI startup truly defensible in 2026? Not your tech stack. Not your prompts. Not your UI. In this episode, AI strategist Svetlana Makarova — who built and scaled AI solutions at Mayo Clinic — breaks down the only three competitive moats that actually matter for AI startups and why most founders are unknowingly building on quicksand. If you're building an AI company or thinking ab...

If you've invested in AI and you're wondering why your P&L isn't showing the gains you expected, this episode is for you. Svetlana Makarova, AI strategist who scaled solutions at Mayo Clinic, breaks down the biggest paradox in enterprise AI: Why 90% of companies report AI adoption while 95% see NO measurable P&L impact. She reveals the truth about MIT vs. Wharton reports, in...

Join us as Svetlana Makarova, AI strategist and former Mayo Clinic leader, shares her incredible story of breaking into healthcare AI and achieving remarkable success in one of the most regulated environments on earth. 🎯 What You'll Learn: How to enter AI/healthcare AI without a technical background The exact framework used to scale an AI solution  Why healthcare's regulatory barriers a...

Part 3 of our conversation with Kelly Cochran, Research Director at FinRegLab As AI systems in financial services grow increasingly sophisticated—from traditional machine learning to generative AI and agentic systems—the question of guardrails becomes critical. In this episode, Kelly Cochran breaks down what responsible AI deployment really means in credit underwriting and financial services. In T...

Should AI be allowed to move your money without asking first? It's not a hypothetical question anymore—agentic AI systems are already operating inside financial institutions, and consumer-facing applications aren't far behind. In Part 2 of our conversation with Kelly, we dive deep into the world of agentic AI systems in financial services. These aren't simple chatbots or standalone...

The Credit Access Crisis You Didn't Know Existed In Part 1 of this conversation, Kelly Cochran drops a truth bomb that changes everything: Millions of creditworthy people are getting rejected for loans right now—not because they won't pay them back, but because traditional credit systems can't evaluate them efficiently. Kelly Cochran is Deputy Director and Chief Program Officer at F...

$2,500 for a painkiller. $10,000 for a routine procedure. All because nobody told you the ONE question to ask. This episode could save you thousands—or help your hospital recover millions. 🎯 THE GAME-CHANGING CONVERSATION: Have you ever opened a medical bill and thought, "Wait, WHAT?" You're not alone. And here's what makes it worse: The strategies hospitals use to recover MIL...

AI in Healthcare Revenue Cycle Management: With Claims, Denial management and out-of-network nightmares, Will AI replace jobs? Is AI really transforming healthcare revenue cycle management, or is it just another buzzword? In this episode, we sit down with Elizabeth Daley, VP of Out of Network at Revco Solutions, who brings 20 years of hands-on experience in healthcare RCM. Elizabeth shares insider...

In Part 2 of our conversation on the IDA Podcast, we continue our compelling discussion with Dr. Neil about AI in healthcare. Dr. Neil doesn't hold back as he addresses the critical ethical questions facing the healthcare industry in the age of AI. From accountability concerns to the need for explainable AI, Dr. Neil shares his insights on why technology companies must take responsibility for...

🚀 "IF AI WAS MY JUNIOR RESIDENT, I WOULD'VE FIRED HIM" Brutal honesty from Dr. Neil Mukherjee—and exactly what healthcare needs to hear about AI right now. In this unfiltered conversation, Dr. Mukherjee (Director at Northwell Health, MIT Med Hack winner, 15+ years as a surgeon) shares insights you won't find in any AI vendor pitch or industry report. From ambient scribing to c...

🚀 HEALTHCARE AI JUST EXPLODED—AND 80% OF THE MARKET IS STILL UNTAPPED Healthcare organizations are now deploying AI at 2.2X the rate of other industries. In just 12 months, adoption jumped from 3% to 22%—a 7X increase. $1.4 billion in spending. Eight new unicorns. And procurement cycles that dropped from 12-18 months to just 4.7 months. In this episode, I break down Menlo Ventures' comprehen...