Founder Spotlight: Chuck Feerick, Latitude

Reimagining Clinical Decision-Making

For Chuck Feerick, founding Latitude Health wasn’t just a professional milestone – it was personal. His professional career, spanning leadership roles within health plans as well as leading product and growth at fast growing startups like Clarify Health, prepared him to take the leap into entrepreneurship, but the why behind the company runs much deeper.

As a young adult facing a serious illness, Chuck spent weeks in an inpatient treatment center. While he was fortunate to get the care required and make a full recovery, his roommate in treatment, Will, wasn’t as lucky. Will was discharged too soon because his health insurer denied his care, leaving him without the critical treatment he needed. Tragically, that gap in care led to Will’s passing.

This experience stayed with Chuck. It wasn’t just a failure of the Utilization management (UM) system that health insurers use – it was a human tragedy. It exposed the devastating impact of behind-the-scenes clinical decisions made with incomplete information.

Determined to fix what was broken, Chuck spent the next 15 years in operating roles at health plans. There, he saw firsthand how outdated UM tools and processes slowed decisions, frustrated care teams, and drove up costs – costs that ultimately landed on patients. But what struck him most were the people behind those decisions. Care teams were burdened by legacy systems, overwhelmed by inefficiencies, and left making critical calls without the data they needed. UM wasn’t just slow – it was failing the very people it was meant to serve.

“Clinicians were forced to make treatment decisions without the whole picture,” Chuck shared. “We are building Latitude so that what happened to Will never happens to anyone again..”

Building a Product That Puts Patients First

Chuck and his cofounder worked alongside more than 50 UM professionals at health plans – including intake teams, nurses, and medical directors – to design a platform that truly serves its users. The result is an AI-native solution that removes roadblocks, reduces workloads, and empowers UM teams to make faster, smarter decisions within the complex constraints of U.S. healthcare.

“At Latitude, we believe technology should amplify the people who deliver care, not stand in their way. That’s why everything we build is grounded in a single core belief: better tools lead to better decisions – and better decisions save lives” Chuck shared.

Today, Latitude Health is transforming UM from a reactive process into a proactive, strategic function. By replacing outdated workflows with predictive tools and actionable insights, Latitude is helping teams work smarter (not harder!), improving outcomes, and ensuring patients receive the care they deserve.

His proudest moment to date? Watching their first customer go live – and hearing clinicians immediately validate the tool's impact on how they make decisions. Because at its core, Latitude isn’t just about technology –it’s about putting people first.

Momentum & Market Fit

With health insurance companies stretched thin and strapped for tech resources, Latitude is stepping in with a solution that works with existing platforms. It’s HIPAA-compliant, doesn’t require huge infrastructure changes, and actually helps overworked care teams do more with less.

While there is potential to expand through partnerships with legacy platforms, the product doesn’t solely depend on them. It’s built to coexist and integrate, not compete.

Chuck reflected, “We’re in a sweet spot – health plans can’t build this kind of technology in-house, and they can’t afford to hire more nurses, but they are forced to be doing more with less and facing increasing regulatory pressures. We’re here to bridge that gap with real, working solutions.”

With strong traction from existing customers and a clear value proposition, Latitude is poised for growth.

Community, Mentorship, & the Power of IGNITE

Startups are hard. Healthcare startups? Even harder. That’s why IGNITE has meant so much to Chuck.

Chuck stated, “The mentors in the program have been truly fantastic. They bring such deep experience to help guide first-time founders like myself and go above and beyond to help..”

From meaningful whiteboarding sessions with mentors to honest conversations with other founders about growth, hiring, and strategy, the experience has been both grounding and energizing.

The “who-not-how” mindset has also taken root. Chuck knows that building the right team – and finding the right people to unlock the next phase of growth – is critical to success.

Chuck shared, “Being a founder can be lonely. Having this community to bounce ideas off of or just call when you’re stuck is what the IGNITE program is all about.”

‍