Jerry Hogge spent nearly four decades turning complexity into clarity. Now executive vice president, general manager and chief operations officer at Claritev, he leads 1,800 professionals working to make healthcare more affordable, transparent and efficient for millions of Americans.
His path hasn’t been linear — from engineering and law to telecom, federal services and healthcare technology — but every step built toward a single goal: aligning business strategy with operational excellence to improve people’s lives.
In this conversation, Hogge shares how a career that began at AT&T led to his work at Claritev, what mentorship has meant along the way and why the future of healthcare depends on data, technology and human insight.
Can you provide a brief overview of your professional background and career progression? Please include what ultimately landed you in your current role.
I started my career in 1988 after graduating from Virginia Tech (B.S. Electrical Engineering, M.S. Industrial Systems Engineering) at AT&T in the Federal engineering and operations division. I spent a decade there as my career evolved from operations and engineering to strategic pricing, product management, and general management responsibilities. During that time, I earned a Juris Doctor degree in Patent Law from George Mason, attending law school in the evenings while continuing to work full-time.
In 1998, I joined Birch, Stewart, Kolasch & Birch, a local intellectual property law firm, but quickly realized the practice of law was far less rewarding than learning the law itself. I returned to telecommunications, building Federal business units at Winstar Communications and then Level 3. Both experiences, made possible with the help of talented colleagues, became my first and second large-scale management roles—among the most rewarding of my career.
I later shifted into Federal professional services supporting civilian, defense, and intelligence agencies. That path led to my role as general manager of SAIC’s (later Leidos’s) Federal health unit. Serving the healthcare needs of active-duty military and veterans became the most fulfilling work of my life, and improving healthcare for all Americans has since become my final and most important career mission.
Today, I serve as General Manager & Chief Operations Officer of Claritev, where we focus on using data, technology, and insights to improve healthcare affordability, transparency, and quality in the U.S. and the Middle East. I lead 1,800 talented professionals delivering solutions that aim to make healthcare more efficient and accessible. Claritev serves over 700 payors, 100,000 employers, 60 million consumers, and 1.4 million contracted providers. This role represents the culmination of a 37-year career focused on aligning business objectives with operational excellence by bringing together the right people and solutions to make the greatest impact.
Why was this the path you chose, and how influential was it to your career?
I began my career focused on engineering and operations and expected to build exclusively on technical skills. However, opportunities in strategic pricing and business planning revealed that the most profound difference could be made by building businesses and teams focused on delivering maximum value to clients. That insight has guided every role I’ve held for nearly four decades. Applying that philosophy to healthcare has been the most rewarding endeavor of all, because without good health, little else holds the same importance.
Do you have a personal connection to the current mission you support?
I have three personal connections with my current mission and responsibilities. First, like most people, my early interactions with healthcare were limited to routine childhood illnesses and basic care, but later in life, while traveling in Orlando, FL, I experienced a kidney stone attack and ended up in the emergency room. I was seen by out-of-network providers and was charged an amount I had neither consented to nor believed possible, as all my prior experiences had been in-network and straightforward. That encounter highlighted a unique aspect of healthcare: it is the only service we purchase without knowing the true cost or quality in advance, a byproduct of our third-party payer system that creates opacity and inefficiency.
Finally, and most importantly, I am proud to tell you that my daughter, Katie, recently graduated from medical school and is now completing her general surgery residency on her way to becoming a talented and compassionate surgeon focused on improving the lives of all the patients she will serve.
What are your current top priorities and responsibilities? How do these relate to your company’s overall mission/growth strategy?
At Claritev, my team and I focus on five major lines of business: 1) identifying fair market prices for out-of-network claims, which last year alone reduced billed costs by $23 billion; 2) building and operating national provider networks to ensure access to care nationwide; 3) delivering payment and revenue integrity services to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse; 4) recommending value-based health plan optimization for small and mid-sized businesses using our networks and pricing algorithms; and 5) applying advanced data and decision science to improve risk analytics, provider pricing, and benefit design.
Each business line delivers unique value, but they all share the same mission objective: to provide service excellence at an affordable cost while addressing our clients’ most important needs to improve healthcare in America and abroad.
Where do you and your team see growth opportunities in your current field, and what do you anticipate to be your customers’ top pain points?
Growth exists across all our business lines, each addressing profound challenges in U.S. healthcare. At the highest level, our opportunity lies in using data, technology, and insights to improve affordability, quality, and access to healthcare. Healthcare costs remain the leading cause of bankruptcy among older Americans, and they weigh heavily on employers and patients of all ages. Many point solutions exist, and Claritev is determined to deliver holistic solutions that help to improve the affordability, transparency, and quality of healthcare in our Country.
How are you and your team planning to address these opportunities?
We focus on continuous process improvement, adoption of AI/ML, and ensuring the right people are in the right roles with the right skills at the right time. I am fortunate to have a leadership team fully aligned with these imperatives. At Claritev, we live by the motto Clarity – Alignment – Focus. These are not just words, but a disciplined approach essential to delivering faster, more effective solutions for our clients.
How important is mentorship and networking in GovCon? Were they influential to your career?
Mentorship and networking are essential in any field. They foster trusted relationships, create opportunities for partnerships, help identify acquisition opportunities, and provide invaluable learning. I joined Claritev largely because of a long relationship with our CEO Travis Dalton, whose vision and mentorship during a major DoD/DHA healthcare pursuit was pivotal. His continued guidance at Claritev has been equally valuable to me and to our entire organization.
Over 37 years, only a handful of people have truly taken time to mentor me, but those few individuals profoundly shaped my thinking, my management style, and my professional areas of focus. True mentors engage authentically, share complementary perspectives, and challenge you to grow.
What is something most people don’t know about you personally?
I am an avid fan of both Formula 1 and Top Fuel Drag Racing—two very different motorsports. Formula 1 represents precision and endurance, pairing elite drivers with cutting-edge machines for hours of racing. Top Fuel Drag Racing is pure brute force, pushing the limits of physics in races lasting just over three seconds. Despite their differences, both embody teamwork, innovation, consistency, and constant improvement—principles that inspire me daily.