The people behind the work.
Named, credentialed, and reachable — the researchers and builders behind the methodology, the data layers, and the platform.
David Muhlestein
Founder & CEO
David Muhlestein founded Simple Healthcare in 2023 and leads a team focused on making healthcare data comprehensible and actionable. He is a healthcare research executive with experience spanning strategy, management, product development, business development, and publication, and he specializes in understanding healthcare system transformation and quantifying policy outcomes. Before founding Simple Healthcare, David spent twelve years at Leavitt Partners, rising from analyst to Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Research Officer, and served as Chief Research & Innovation Officer at Health Management Associates. He also founded Torch Insight, a SaaS healthcare market data and analytics platform that grew out of his dissertation research and was acquired by Milliman MedInsight in 2020. David has been a Visiting Policy Fellow at the Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy since 2017, and previously served as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at The Dartmouth Institute and a Visiting Fellow at the Accountable Care Learning Collaborative. He has published extensively on price transparency, accountable care organizations, and value-based care, including "High Prevalence of Ghost Rates in Transparency in Coverage Data" in Health Affairs Scholar, work on payer data completeness in AJMC, and the Duke-Margolis annual review of the Medicare Shared Savings Program. He holds a PhD in Health Services Management and Policy, a Master of Healthcare Administration, and an MS in Public Health from The Ohio State University College of Public Health, a Juris Doctor from the Ohio State Moritz College of Law, and a BA in Philosophy from Brigham Young University.
John Fiacco
Executive Advisor
John Fiacco is an Executive Advisor to Simple Healthcare, providing strategic guidance to the senior team with a focus on maximizing growth and optimizing operations. He specializes in facilitating early-stage business growth and development, and brings direct experience with the healthcare data business Simple Healthcare's work builds on. John was CEO and President of Leavitt Partners Insight, the company behind Torch Insight, a SaaS healthcare market data and analytics platform incubated at Leavitt Partners, leading it through rapid growth and its 2020 acquisition by Milliman MedInsight, where he then served as Managing Director of Torch Insight. He was also Chief Growth Officer at AVIA, a digital transformation partner for healthcare organizations, where he led business development strategy and sales operations and spearheaded expansion into digital health advisory services, and Senior Vice President of Corporate and Business Development at Connecture. Outside of healthcare, he is General Manager of Imperial Importers, a boutique wine and spirits importer. John holds an MBA in Marketing and Finance from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and a BS in Human Development & Social Policy from Northwestern University.
Ryan Carroll
Chief Operating Officer
Ryan Carroll is Chief Operating Officer at Simple Healthcare, where he has been part of the leadership team since 2024. Ryan joined the company as Chief Product Officer and later served as Chief Commercial Officer, leading product strategy, go-to-market, and work with the customers and partners who put healthcare price transparency to use. He stepped into the COO role in 2026. Before Simple Healthcare, Ryan was Director of Lean Innovation & Growth at Envista Holdings Corporation and spent three and a half years at Danaher Corporation, where he held roles including Vertical Market Manager and Portfolio Manager at Pall Corporation and was part of Danaher's General Management Development Program. He also taught Healthcare Industry Dynamics as an adjunct professor at the Brigham Young University Marriott School of Business. Ryan holds an MBA from the BYU Marriott School of Business and a BS in Business Management with a finance emphasis from Brigham Young University.
Josh Monson
Chief Technology Officer
Josh Monson is Chief Technology Officer at Simple Healthcare. He brings a decade of experience building healthcare data platforms and large-scale interactive software. Josh spent nearly four years at Leavitt Partners as a Senior Software Engineer and lead developer for the web-facing applications of Torch Insight, the healthcare data analytics platform, where he built custom data visualization libraries, analytic backends, and custom ETL tooling for data validation and quality. He continued with the product through its acquisition by Milliman, serving as Senior Lead Software Engineer and then Engineering Manager and Senior Engineering Manager, leading Torch Insight's technical development and its integration into Milliman. He is also the founder of Sparkwell Creative, an initiative to help bring families together by fostering collaboration and creativity through technology. Josh holds an MS in Computer Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BS in Computer Science from Brigham Young University.
Yuvraj Pathak
VP of Strategy & Research
Yuvraj Pathak is Vice President of Strategy & Research at Simple Healthcare, where he leads the company's research agenda. He is an economist by training with a focus on economic modeling and health economics and outcomes research. Before joining Simple Healthcare in 2025, Yuvraj spent three years at West Health as a Senior Researcher and then Associate Director, and prior to that was an Economist at NORC at the University of Chicago. Earlier in his career, Yuvraj was a consultant at The World Bank, where his work included designing and implementing field experiments, and he served as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Chicago and a graduate research assistant at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He co-authored "Price Transparency With Gaps: Assessing the Completeness of Payer Transparency in Coverage Data" in AJMC: Population Health, Equity & Outcomes, supported by the Peterson Center on Healthcare, as well as a Commonwealth Fund brief on improving payments for primary care physicians. His earlier academic work includes research on women's political reservation and early childhood development in India, published in Economic Development and Cultural Change. Yuvraj holds a PhD and a master's degree in public policy from the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago.
Elvira Makk Frid
Senior Analyst
Elvira Makk Frid is a Senior Analyst at Simple Healthcare, where she manages research and client engagements from project design and analysis through publication, product development, and delivery. She translates large healthcare pricing datasets into strategic recommendations for employers, policymakers, and healthcare organizations, and develops publications, reports, presentations, and thought leadership for clients, partners, and industry stakeholders. She leads cross-functional initiatives spanning strategy, research, operations, marketing, and communications, coordinating across leadership, technical, and research teams. Before joining Simple Healthcare in 2025, Elvira was a Research Associate at West Health, where she managed research projects focused on healthcare affordability, supported a national survey partnership with Gallup, and contributed to survey design, data analysis, and the development of interactive dashboards and data products. She also served as a graduate teaching assistant at Georgetown University for Statistical Methods for Policy Analysis and Regression Methods for Policy Analysis. Elvira holds a master's degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University and a bachelor's degree in Economics, summa cum laude, from Florida State University. She is fluent in English and Swedish.
Samia Imtiaz
Analyst
Samia Imtiaz is an Analyst at Simple Healthcare, where she supports the company's mission of enhancing hospital price transparency by providing data-driven insights and analysis. Her work involves interpreting complex data, identifying trends, and generating reports that inform strategic decisions, helping shape projects that align with healthcare regulations and improve cost transparency for clients. Samia brings a background in biological research and an analytical, detail-oriented approach to healthcare pricing data. She is a co-author of the Commonwealth Fund brief on improving payments for primary care physicians, which examined why primary care is underpaid relative to other specialties and offered recommendations for CMS and Congress. She holds a Master of Philosophy in Animal Sciences from Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad.