From Friction to Fix: Measuring What’s Breaking Payer-Provider Trust
Tolerance for this abrasion is gone. It wastes time, drains staff capacity, drives up costs, and affects the patient experience.
Russ Thomas
Russ Thomas, JD is the Chief Executive Officer of Availity, the nation's largest health information network connecting over 3.5 million providers to more than 95% of U.S. health plans and 17,000 technology partners, facilitating over $4 trillion in healthcare transactions annually. At this scale, Availity plays a central role as the backbone of modern healthcare to transform the most complex friction points between payers and providers into opportunities for collaboration.
In his role, Thomas brings nearly three decades of experience in healthcare technology, digital transformation, and cross-stakeholder collaboration to advance administrative simplification, real-time data analytics, and system-wide accountability that reduces provider burden and improves patient access to care. In addition to his role at Availity, Thomas currently serves as Chair of the Florida Chamber of Commerce Healthcare Policy Council, and on multiple healthcare and philanthropic boards. In addition, Russ is a commercial rated pilot who served on the Jacksonville Aviation Authority from 2015 to 2022.