Dr. Otto co-founded Cedar after his wife struggled through a nightmarish hospital billing experience, channeling that personal frustration into a mission to make healthcare more accessible and affordable. The company’s AI-powered platform helps healthcare organizations solve the growing complexity of personalized patient financial engagement. Before founding Cedar, he served as an executive at Zocdoc focused on delivering a superior patient experience and began his business career as a strategy consultant at McKinsey & Company within their healthcare practice. In the past year, Dr. Otto has driven two groundbreaking innovations. One of them is “Kora,” the first AI voice agent built specifically for healthcare billing, which is expected to automate 30% of patient billing calls by the end of 2026. The other is “Cedar Cover,” the healthcare industry’s first proactive, comprehensive digital safety net designed to secure coverage and financial aid for underinsured and uninsured patients while protecting providers from uncompensated care. Cedar Cover is already delivering significant results across nearly a dozen leading health systems, including a 30% increase in insurance reimbursement from overturned denials driving $8 million in annual value recovery, a 97% Medicaid application approval rate, and more than $12,000 in average medication assistance grants per approved application. Cedar has forged key partnerships with leading health systems and was recognized as one of TIME‘s “World’s Top Health Tech Companies.” Dr. Otto is a member of the Forbes business council and was named among The Healthcare Technology Report‘s “Top 25 Healthcare Software Executives” of 2025.
