Latitude Health discloses $2M as CMS tightens prior-authorization rules
Chuck Feerick and Guru Nadiger are building an AI platform for payer workflows as CMS decision-time and electronic-interface requirements take effect.
By Ryan Merket · Published
Why it matters
CMS deadlines are forcing payers to modernize prior authorization. Latitude Health is betting that its founders' payer experience and integration with existing systems can help it establish a foothold.
Chuck Feerick and Guru Nadiger's Latitude Health, which builds AI software for health-plan prior authorization and utilization management, has disclosed its first concrete financing.
Latitude Health disclosed $2 million in securities sold toward a planned $3 million offering, according to an SEC Form D filed August 7, 2026. The filing reports two participating investors but does not name them or disclose a valuation.
The filing identifies Feerick as an executive officer and director and lists physician and investor Jarred Bressner and healthcare executive Chris Palmieri as directors. Latitude identifies Feerick as its CEO and co-founder and Nadiger as co-founder and chief product and technology officer.
The director list brings healthcare operating and investment experience without resolving who supplied the new capital. Bressner is a principal at Activate Venture Partners and trained as an orthopaedic surgeon at Johns Hopkins. Palmieri founded Winter Street Ventures after running Commonwealth Care Alliance and Remedy Partners. Their firms should not be assumed to be among the two investors because the filing does not establish that connection.
Founders with payer-operations experience
Feerick spent 15 years in healthcare operating roles and previously worked at Clarify Health Solutions, Anthem, Healthbox and WKG Advisory, according to Latitude's founder materials. Nadiger spent approximately two decades building enterprise and utilization-management products for health plans. Latitude says the pair worked with more than 50 utilization-management professionals, including intake staff, nurses and medical directors, while designing the platform.
That background matters because utilization management is a workflow problem wrapped around a clinical decision. Requests arrive through faxes, emails, portals and phone calls. Staff must create cases, collect records, assess plan rules, route requests and document determinations. Latitude Health is betting that software built by payer operators can remove much of that clerical work while keeping clinicians responsible for consequential decisions.
Latitude Health says its platform automates 75% of manual utilization-management tasks, a company-reported claim that the supplied materials do not independently validate. The software covers intake, case creation, triage, prioritization, clinical review and performance reporting. Latitude markets it to health plans, third-party administrators, independent review organizations, delegated-risk groups and workers' compensation organizations. Latitude Health has not published customer-level results establishing its automation rate.
The founders present the software as an assistant to clinical reviewers. Latitude's founding post says the company believes "technology should amplify the people who deliver care." That boundary carries weight in a field where automated denials can create clinical, regulatory and reputational risk.
Regulation creates a deadline for buyers
CMS rules increase the pressure on payers to modernize prior authorization. The requirements set decision-time standards for affected Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program and federally facilitated Marketplace plans, while also requiring affected payers to implement electronic prior-authorization interfaces. The CMS final rule gives payer technology teams a defined modernization deadline.
Those requirements give payer technology teams a concrete reason to replace fax-heavy processes, improve audit trails and monitor turnaround times. They have also drawn competing products. Cohere Health announced a $90 million Series C in May 2025, bringing its stated funding to $200 million, and says its platform has processed millions of authorizations. In March 2026, Innovaccer launched Galaxy UM, a payer platform covering intake, policy checks, determinations and provider communications.
Latitude Health's financing points to an initial strategy centered on fitting into existing payer systems. In a partnership announcement with HealthEdge GuidingCare, Latitude said it would connect its intake and clinical-review tools with software already used by health plans. Latitude said case data can move from GuidingCare into its system for processing and that key outputs can return to GuidingCare. The announcement did not disclose commercial terms or deployment volume.
The $2 million securities sale gives Feerick and Nadiger capital as CMS requirements turn prior-authorization modernization into an operational deadline. Latitude still has to establish that its reported automation rate holds inside payer workflows, where medical policy, incomplete records and legacy integrations can complicate deployment. Its founders are betting that their experience with those constraints will help the company win adoption.