The story · Alex Yarijanian
From a psychology degree in Riverside to work spanning provider networks, payer contracts, and digital healthcare delivery. More than fifteen years turning payer contracting, value-based care, and administrative complexity into practical improvements for patients and providers.
Read the six chapters ↓
“Healthcare is a system of incentives, contracts, and human decisions. Change the incentives, structure the contracts correctly, and make better decisions — and you can move the system.”
Alex YarijanianSix chapters
Alex studied psychology at UC Riverside, graduating summa cum laude. Understanding how people decide, how systems shape behavior, and why institutions resist change became useful far beyond the classroom.
He later earned a Master of Science in Healthcare Administration at California State University, Long Beach. The real education unfolded alongside it, in the gap between what healthcare promises and what patients encounter.
Early roles took Alex through managed care for 28 clinics in California and Texas, bundled-payment networks, and health plan contracting. He saw how payer rules and provider operations meet, and how small errors in network design can keep people from care.
At Humana, he worked across contracting and Medicare Advantage network management. His profile reports a 37.1% reduction in provider directory inaccuracy. Precise, largely invisible work like that determines whether coverage becomes actual access.
Alex founded Carenodes in 2018 to help healthcare organizations build the payer and provider infrastructure needed to serve people at scale. Its work has touched behavioral health, addiction treatment, cognitive care, and other areas where access can fail in the handoff between systems.
Across its portfolio, Carenodes reports work in all 50 states and D.C., 134 providers under management, and a reach of 51 million Americans. The large figures rest on specific work: one network, contract, provider, and patient pathway at a time.
At Mahmee, Alex moved from senior advisor to national leadership in value-based purchasing and contracting. The work translated maternal-health outcomes into payer agreements and the operating capacity needed to deliver on them.
His profile attributes $58 million in managed Medicaid savings to a value-based maternal-care arrangement. For Alex, the lesson was practical: strong clinical evidence needs a contract and a delivery model that can carry it.
Alongside the operational work, Alex built a public platform for conversations with payer executives, health system leaders, and digital health founders. The earlier Value-Based Care Accelerator series ran for 52 episodes; today, Value-Based Care Advisory continues that focus on practical change.
Writing, speaking, and the podcast gave the work another outlet. Health 2.0 recognized Alex and Carenodes in 2022, and his talks bring contracting and care delivery into the same room.
Alex continues to lead Carenodes, build payer contract intelligence through Viper Health / viperOS, and host Value-Based Care Advisory. His Rocket Doctor contracting role concluded in September 2026, following his leadership work at Mahmee through July 2026 and Daybreak Health through April 2026. Each draws on the same mix of operational detail and bigger questions about who receives care.
The through-line is simple: incentives, contracts, and human decisions shape the system. Changing them takes patient work, specific agreements, and a willingness to stay accountable after a deal is signed.
Professional profile
Alex Yarijanian is a Los Angeles-based healthcare strategist, founder, and operator whose work spans payer contracting, value-based care, and the administrative systems that determine whether patients can access services. He founded Carenodes in 2018 to help healthcare organizations turn complex care models into sustainable operations.
Across its portfolio, Carenodes reports operations in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., 134 providers under management, 10 medical groups, and a reach of 51 million Americans through digital healthcare delivery. Its work spans Alzheimer’s and dementia care, post-acute and behavioral health, substance use disorder treatment, Hospital at Home, IoT-enabled diabetic care, and healthcare reintegration for people experiencing homelessness.
At Mahmee, his work in national value-based purchasing and contracting included payer engagement across 43 states and a maternal-care agreement associated with $58 million in Medicaid savings through C-section reduction. His managed-care leadership at Daybreak Health, from September 2024 to April 2026, focused on payer agreements supporting school-based youth mental healthcare.
Earlier, as COO of Insight Choices, he increased payer reimbursements by 68% and helped the behavioral-health group achieve record monthly revenue. At Humana, his contracting and network work reduced Medicare Advantage provider-directory inaccuracy by 37.1%. At Optum/naviHealth, he managed a network of 14 hospitals and more than 50 post-acute providers under the CMS Bundled Payments for Care Improvement program.
Alex earned his Master of Science in Healthcare Administration at California State University, Long Beach, with a 4.0 GPA, graduating at the top of his class, and his B.A. in Psychology at UC Riverside, summa cum laude. His writing includes Forbes Business Council and Becker’s Hospital Review. In 2022, Health 2.0 recognized him with an Outstanding Leadership Award and Carenodes with a Best Company Award.
His speaking record includes the Florida State of Reform Health Policy Conference, the Health 2.0 Conference—including a keynote on digital senior care—and the Forbes Business Council Masterclass series. His central conviction is that many of healthcare’s most persistent failures are contractual, structural, and administrative: improving care requires changing the systems around it.
Community giving back · Board affiliations & service
Alex’s community engagement has deep roots in Los Angeles and extends nationally, with a focus on populations too often left outside the healthcare system.
As co-founder and former Board Chair of Cardborigami, he helped guide a Los Angeles nonprofit that designs and deploys portable, temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness. His work connected shelter provision with broader population-health needs. Through Carenodes, he has also developed programs to reconnect people experiencing homelessness with healthcare services.
His engagement with PledgeLA, an initiative of the Annenberg Foundation and the Office of the Mayor of Los Angeles, reflects a commitment to equity and inclusion within the region’s technology and venture community.
His service includes membership on a North Carolina Department of Justice healthcare committee created by then-Attorney General Josh Stein, the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade through the Florida Department of Health, and consumer advocacy in California managed care.
In 2021, Carenodes joined a national mental-health access initiative involving the White House and MTV Entertainment Group. Alex’s broader collaborations have included the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce’s Healthcare Committee, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress.
Across nonprofit governance, government committees, coalition-building, and direct program development, the through-line is practical: help underserved communities connect with care, resources, and lasting support.
Credentials & recognition
MS Healthcare Administration, CSULB
BA Psychology, UC Riverside · Summa Cum Laude
Forbes Business Council
Becker’s Hospital Review
Health 2.0 Outstanding Leadership and Best Company awards · 2022
51M Americans reached
$58M Medicaid savings attributed to the Mahmee agreement
134 providers under management
66K+ virtual opioid treatment appointments facilitated
What’s next
Building a digital health company, navigating a payer contract, or looking for a speaker who has worked through the details? I’d welcome the conversation.