Health Tech: Chandler Barron Of Parathon On How Their Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness

An Interview With David Leichner

As I shared above, all of healthcare is interrelated and has many different facets, but the one thing underpinning all the great or poor health care we receive is reimbursement. There’s not necessarily a direct relationship between the money we recover for our customers to the health of the people they treat, but I like to think we are helping the doctors, nurses and other dedicated health care providers serve their mission, even if most of them may not be aware of our role.

In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chandler Barron.

As president of Parathon by JDA eHealthSystems, Chandler Barron is responsible for leading Parathon’s team of skilled nurses, certified coders, experienced analysts and software developers to provide hospitals and health systems the tools and processes that help them collect all the revenue they have earned. He is an accomplished speaker and media commentator on health care revenue cycle and financial trends.

Barron joined Parathon in 2022 as vice president of business development and since his appointment as president in 2024, Barron has applied his more than 30 years of health care experience to drive strategic growth by providing more hospitals and health systems across the country with Parathon’s proprietary and patented revenue cycle management and payer contract management solution. Barron is also focusing the company’s efforts to help provider organizations increase revenue and streamline operations using its unique Parallel Database™.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?

I was fortunate to grow up in a home full of love and happiness, surrounded by the hardest-working, funny, family-committed dad, and the most supportive, compassionate, and creative mom. I was lucky to have an older and younger brother who taught me not to talk too much during dinner, because they would eat all the food on the table while asking me question after question.

The solid foundation I had in my home in Memphis proved to be a tremendous asset as my family and I faced personal adversity — adversity that ended up being the spark that led to my career in health care.

My older brother was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a child so that was my first introduction to the world of healing and medicine, but my life-changing event was yet to come.

When I was in seventh grade, I had an accident with a car antenna that severed the optic nerve in my left eye, leaving me blind in that eye. The antenna came within centimeters of my brain. The doctors said I was lucky to be alive, and I would never see out of that eye again. In fact, they said the eye would likely continue to deteriorate and eventually would have to be removed. This was devastating for me as a young kid. The good news is the doctors were wrong about my eye. I began to see shadows out of it and after some time, regained movement, and after a period of double vision, I can now see at about 20/30 vision out of that eye.

I faced another health issue in 11th grade when a football team sports physician discovered scoliosis in my spine that my pediatrician had missed. In my case, my spine was curving toward my lungs, so I had to have surgery within weeks and hardware implanted in my back that is still there. That was the end of contact sports for me as I was in a waist-to-neck body cast for a full year, but I’m grateful the trainer discovered it.

As a young adult these challenges led me to develop an interest in doing good in the world and to understand and appreciate the critical role quality health care plays in our lives. I was a creative person who started college with a double major on a Music and Art scholarship but graduated with a degree in Communications to provide myself with a career safety net. Initially, I moved to Nashville to pursue music, and I thought of healthcare as an honorable day job. I decided early on that I had to develop my own internal mission beyond making money by considering how what I was doing was impacting society.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I’ve had many valuable experiences that come to mind, and a few stand out as they’ve tested my grit and strengthened my ability to pivot. For example, early in my career I was lucky enough to have a great job in pharmaceutical sales for Eli Lilly. At that stage of life, I was straddling the fence of working a demanding professional job during the day and then pursuing music at night — I felt as though I was unable to dedicate 100% to either path. Beyond the frustration of not having time to fully pursue music, I felt as though I was not performing my best for Eli Lilly even though I was meeting all the job requirements.

Even though I was young and single, I was grateful to have group health insurance, and I really did love having a company car. But I decided to turn in my two-week notice anyway without any idea of how I was going to pay for rent and a car. I wanted to see if I could just figure it out, but I must admit I was pretty nervous.

During the first of the two weeks I bought a $1,200 old pickup truck. It was a mess and looked chaotic, but at the time felt right. During the second week, a friend of a friend said he had heard of an opportunity to work out on a music tour as some sort of roadie. I quickly inquired and begged to meet with the hiring entertainment marketing company to see if I could maneuver my way in. I didn’t have any connections in the music industry and I was willing to take any type of role just to learn. I decided to take a quick day trip to Chicago to advocate for myself but found out they had already hired someone for the position. I still had no idea of what kind of job it was that I had tried to get.

The CEO of this company ended up meeting me while I was there. Somehow, he was impressed enough to offer me the other person’s job, even though they had already promised it to him. This is when I found out I would be working out on the road with Brooks & Dunn running their tour sponsorship marketing function. That afternoon I flew back to Nashville to finish up my work week calling on doctors.

A lot happened during those two weeks. I was in pharmaceutical sales meetings one day, and the next day I was turning in my Eli Lilly company car, then the day after that, I met Ronnie Dunn and Kix Brooks before their show in Idaho. That very night I went to sleep in the top bunk of a Brooks & Dunn tour bus traveling to coliseums through the United States.

Another interesting story involves the operating room and my work selling and demonstrating surgical procedures for implantable bio-material. What’s ironic is that during college, I took only one four-week condensed science course for my degree, and honestly had a strong dislike for the subject at the time. Frankly, back then no one really would have dreamed I would spend a period of my career actually performing surgery on live pigs and human cadavers to train to become a subject matter expert. No one from my creative, musical background would have believed my success in a science-focused field, and I know for sure no one in that surgical suite would’ve dreamed how much of my previous life was filled with music and creativity.

Apparently, I’ve become an expert at exceeding what I think I am capable of, because, in addition to working in healthcare and touring with country music stars, I also created a software company called MobileSmartBid. This business provided mobile auctions during live fundraising events. The concept for a software solution came to me when trying to figure out how to increase revenue for a nonprofit where I served on the board. Once I identified the problem, I came up with a solution. The problem was there was not a company that provided a solution the way I envisioned it. I thought there should be a mobile software solution to make sure attendees could enjoy the evening festivities while still being alerted by technology whenever they had been outbid. The solution ended up as sort of a technology concierge for each guest. This seems like an obvious solution now, but back in 2010 it was nonexistent for these types of fundraising events. After scaling MobileSmartBid throughout North America for hundreds of organizations ranging from the country music industry to hospitals to the National Hockey League — it was acquired in 2015 by a company that specialized in serving the nonprofit community.

Mastering how to pivot throughout my career has proven to be an asset, both intellectually and strategically. I’m grateful for previous times of uncertainty because they helped me gain a skill set that few have. I used to think my creativity was limited to things considered artistic, but now I realize it’s all about problem-solving and finding a solution that doesn’t seem to exist.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My parents for sure, but outside of family I never had anyone really take me under their wing and mentor me, but I had the benefit of interacting with several individuals who imparted life-changing lessons. In business, one example stands out. This man will likely not realize how much this impacted me, but he was named the new president of the company where I worked at the time and he brought in his own team to help restructure the organization. He was a team-oriented person, he knew his strengths, and where he fell short, so he surrounded himself with people who excelled in the areas where he may have lacked expertise. What struck me is the deep trust he had in the other members of his team to execute on the responsibilities he delegated to them. That taught me that even if I can do things myself, we only have a short amount of time to make a difference, so I need to take charge, delegate, and trust my teammates. It’s not always easy, but I often remind myself of how impressed I was when learning this lesson.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

That is a quote from Nelson Mandela, but even before I knew it was his quote, I have often reacted with a similar mindset when someone would say something seemed impossible. My feeling is there is always a solution, and nothing is impossible. I believe this way of thinking goes back to my childhood when multiple specialists said my eye was inoperable and it would be impossible for me to see again. Not only do I now have my sight, but no one would ever know that accident ever occurred. Others told Roger Bannister the four-minute mile was impossible, but once he did it, others realized it was possible and many people have done it since (although not me!).

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Tenacity: I’ve found this trait to be universal among people who are good at anything. For me, I had to develop tenacity to compete with people who had better physical abilities than me, especially with the troubles I had with my eyesight. I had to try harder and make adjustments.

Creativity: I think this trait came from my experience as an artist and songwriter, which is essential for people in those businesses. They must develop the ability to pivot and find an alternative solution, which is also extremely valuable in business. I went to college on a music and art scholarship, so I was taking a painting class to complete my degree requirements. I had previously come up with non-traditional shading techniques on my own before I had training because I was just trying to figure out how to make something look like I saw it in my head. I just didn’t know how to do this in a painting, and so I made a mistake and lamented to my teacher that I needed to start over. Her response was brilliant and a great lesson for me. She said: “Let’s take your mistake and make something beautiful out of it.” She likely wouldn’t remember this interaction or even my name, but her take on creativity stuck with me, and I can’t say how many times I’ve used that philosophy in art or in a song or in business. Being creative enough to turn a mistake into something useful is a highly valuable skill.

Sense of humor: I try not to take myself too seriously. I’m very professional but if something doesn’t go my way, I try to let it roll off. Whether you’re managing a staff of people or you’re trying to bring in new business, you find a way to make the best of every situation.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the technology or medical devices that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?

Let me start by saying keeping our hospitals and health systems financially sound and operational is a key factor in maintaining overall wellness for everyone in our country. I don’t think anyone can imagine a world without hospitals so our goal at Parathon is to help them be as financially efficient as possible. We are a health care revenue cycle company that helps hospitals perform better on their existing payer contracts and better negotiate future contracts. How hospitals and health systems get paid is extremely complex, but they are contracted to receive a certain amount of money from health insurance companies (third-party payers) and we help providers collect the money they are owed. Unfortunately, if hospitals don’t address those underpayments from the payers, that money is lost forever. Hospitals across the country are struggling financially and some are even shutting down. If you have heard of healthcare deserts, this problem of not collecting the money they are owed is, in part, creating them. We are doing what we can to help ensure hospitals stay open and viable so they can continue to care for the patients who need them.

How do you think your technology can address this?

What hospitals learn after working with us is they are not receiving all the revenue they are supposed to get from their existing contracts. This is money they are owed that is simply taken away because it’s not identified or uncovered. If it’s not identified, they never get it. That’s why I feel like my team and I are making a difference and doing something good for society because we help hospitals in ways others can’t or don’t. As I mentioned, patient wellness is dependent on the financial wellness of their local hospital, so in an indirect way we are helping patients. Helping hospitals continue to provide exceptional patient care is our mission. We’re businesspeople so we want to fill a gap and meet an unfilled need and help hospitals in ways they haven’t thought of. Making money in the process is icing on the cake.

Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?

When my son was born, he was diagnosed with Down syndrome, and he had a serious heart defect. The defect was so severe he was flown to Vanderbilt Children’s and was on life support until he gained enough strength to undergo an open-heart surgical procedure to correct the defect. Frankly, he wasn’t expected to survive. But thanks to the great care he received, they saved his life.

If we had not had access to a hospital with dedicated doctors or the necessary technology, my son would not have survived. There are communities that are at risk, or have lost their local hospital. Some hospitals are able to stay open, but struggle to pay for current technology and some needed services — and a large piece of the problem stems from not being reimbursed properly according to payer contracts. Many hospitals have fundraising efforts to help offset the costs, but there’s a good chance they wouldn’t have to fundraise as much if we could secure more of the money they are actually owed. So, in short, my son’s experience is a big part of my inspiration.

How do you think this might change the world?

It’s amazing the more you integrate yourself into the various facets of healthcare, you realize how interrelated they all are, all the good they do, and that none of it happens without funding. Through my work early in my career in pharmaceutical and medical device sales to my work now with the revenue cycle, to all the nonprofit activities I’ve been involved with, it’s amazing how all the facets of health care fit together, and like everything else, it all relies on adequate funding. All the pieces are complex, and while better revenue cycle management won’t change the world, without it, none of this works as well.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

For the employees who work in hospital revenue cycle departments, one of the things that concerns them about our technology is that it uses automation to find revenue that is owed but not reimbursed. But our use of automation enhances what they do — it doesn’t replace people. Humans can accomplish more with the assistance of our technology than they would without it.

Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”?

Know how your technology impacts the big picture

As I shared above, all of healthcare is interrelated and has many different facets, but the one thing underpinning all the great or poor health care we receive is reimbursement. There’s not necessarily a direct relationship between the money we recover for our customers to the health of the people they treat, but I like to think we are helping the doctors, nurses and other dedicated health care providers serve their mission, even if most of them may not be aware of our role.

Solve a problem others won’t or can’t

Our technology does a fairly unique thing in that we are solely involved in health care contract management. That gives us a level of focus and hard developmental investment our competitors can’t fully match. Our state-of-the-art-modeling not only helps hospitals recover hidden money they’re owed on existing contracts, but it can model how small changes impact new contracts currently being negotiated to better understand how they will perform. That’s a huge value to our customers who often are locked into multi-year contracts with payers.

Work well with other, larger players

We are a small company in comparison to the large electronic medical record companies that say they can do what we do. But even our customers who use them don’t want to stop using us. That’s because we are hyper-focused on our narrow area, and we have developers that can customize our solution to a vast variety of contracts and unique situations our customers face in this highly complex and detailed work of healthcare reimbursement. Our larger competitors claim the same level of performance but can’t match it.

Learn from your mistakes

We have learned how to better leverage tools we weren’t sharing widely enough. One example is our Parallel Database®. This is patented software technology that also provides backup functionality in case a cyberattack on a hospital locks down an external database they rely on to process claims. With our technology, providers are still able to bill in case this scenario plays out. With cyberattacks on health care companies becoming increasingly common, we are starting to really educate our existing customers about this functionality that has become increasingly important in recent years as bad actors have repeatedly hurt healthcare providers.

Consider the drawbacks to your technology

As in the example I shared above, a misplaced fear among many of our users is that our technology will eventually put them out of a job. But as I have learned throughout my career, perception is reality because people choose actions based on fear, so dispelling misinformation is critical to our success and theirs. It is our responsibility to show them how this technology can help existing employees operate at higher efficiency — but it’s not meant to replace them.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

I would tell them to focus on making a positive difference, not on “success.” Find something that makes you get up in the morning energized. I feel like it’s hard to make a positive impact in the world if you’re not doing something every day that really speaks to you.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

There are a lot of people I look up to, but lately, I’m most interested in having a conversation with Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle Corp., and now its chief technology officer and executive chairman. I am based in Nashville, so with the recent news that Oracle plans to move its headquarters here and focus heavily on health care, I am interested in learning how he will execute his plan. He wants to take on Epic, which is a dominant force in our industry, so I would like to know his thoughts on how he’s going to help hospitals. Many articles I have read about the move have hinted about an overarching business strategy for them that hasn’t been fully disclosed and I am just extremely curious.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I am active on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.

About The Interviewer: David Leichner is a veteran of the Israeli high-tech industry with significant experience in the areas of cyber and security, enterprise software and communications. At Cybellum, a leading provider of Product Security Lifecycle Management, David is responsible for creating and executing the marketing strategy and managing the global marketing team that forms the foundation for Cybellum’s product and market penetration. Prior to Cybellum, David was CMO at SQream and VP Sales and Marketing at endpoint protection vendor, Cynet. David is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Jerusalem Technology College. He holds a BA in Information Systems Management and an MBA in International Business from the City University of New York.