Six weeks into running a health system’s scheduling call center, Danny Fleisher received an unwelcome visitor. A respected employee named Evicel closed his office door. He was asking plenty of his staff, she told him, without learning what they needed from him. Her prescription: leave the office. Walk the floor. Ask questions.
Fleisher’s 2024 account traces a discovery that started with bad coffee and an outdated dress code, then reached inadequate training, manual processes and low pay. This happened earlier in his career, before Hummingbird Healthcare. It helps explain the company he later joined: a business devoted to the complicated work between wanting medical care and actually getting it.
- Hummingbird improves and runs patient access for health systems using Epic.
- Its work joins scheduling rules, technology and the people answering patients.
- Its case studies suggest unused capacity can be hiding inside existing operations.
The phone is where the system shows
Consider Cone Health’s starting point. Nursing leader Vi-Anne Antrum described 25 separate call centers, each with its own leadership and workflow. Some callers waited eight to ten minutes. At clinic desks, employees tried to serve the patient standing before them while the telephone kept ringing.
The Enterprise Engagement Contact Center brought those operations under one umbrella, beginning with primary care and later pulmonary care. The important change was the shared way of working. Antrum described quieter clinics and response times under 30 seconds. A better telephone experience could improve the experience of someone who never touched the phone.
In its separate pulmonary case study, Hummingbird describes the unglamorous repairs: digitized instructions, a common knowledge system, scheduling decision trees and changes to provider templates. After three months, it reported 80% of incoming calls answered in under 30 seconds and 40% more new-patient scheduling. Those are company-published results for a particular service.
One partnership, several kinds of work
Founded in 2022 by Jeremy Schwach, Hummingbird sells expertise and ongoing operations to health systems. Its current company description specifies Epic customers. The practical appeal is accountability across work that often lives in separate departments: access consulting, Epic configuration, contact-center operations and technology adoption.
Patient Access as a Service includes scheduling, registration, referrals, authorizations, prescription refill workflows and nurse triage. Epic as a Service handles application support, incidents, maintenance and improvement projects. Buyers can engage Hummingbird across parts of that operation. Patients experience the result through their health system.
The alternative may be an internal team, an Epic consultancy, a contact-center outsourcer or a scheduling tool. Hummingbird’s distinction is the combination. A new booking interface has limited value if the underlying appointment rules keep suitable patients out. Someone has to understand the rules, change the configuration and help employees use it.
- 01InspectFind the access constraint
- 02RebuildAlign rules, Epic and training
- 03OperateWatch performance and adjust
“Technology alone can’t solve our access problems.”
Jeremy Schwach / CEO / June 2024
The appointments were already there
At Monument Health in South Dakota, Hummingbird began with enterprise scheduling standards, then activated cardiology. It rebuilt provider templates, enabled online scheduling, redesigned referrals and introduced waitlist automation. Mission Control, its embedded operating model, supplied visibility into access performance and proposed interventions.
Hummingbird’s August 2026 account reports that daily completed cardiology visits rose from 108.8 to 129.8 in four months, without adding staff or clinic hours. Online scheduling went from zero to 7.3%. The no-show rate fell from 8.0% to 5.6%.
Read that result as an operational example, rather than a promise about every hospital. This approach needs usable underlying capacity and leaders willing to enforce shared standards. Reworking a schedule cannot conjure a specialist who does not exist. It can make an available specialist easier to reach.
The migration met the knowledge problem
Henry Ford Health supplies a useful complication. Its contact center moved from Salesforce Health Cloud to Epic Cheers Call Management. In a 2024 interview, executive Pravin Sapre described the attraction: integrated documentation and scheduling, end-to-end data and lower licensing costs.
Knowledge management became harder than expected. Information in Salesforce relied on data extracts; the planned SharePoint solution would be maintained without those incoming feeds. Analysis of sources and accuracy delayed the build. Hummingbird added resources. An Epic upgrade also squeezed testing time.
That experience offers something readers can copy: inventory the information agents depend on before migrating their screens. Decide who will maintain it, and reserve time to test it. A unified application still needs a reliable answer to the patient’s question.
A real price, and a longer commitment
The economics become concrete in UMC of Southern Nevada’s public agreements, approved April 7, 2026. Over three years, Epic support carries a $14.07 million ceiling; strategic projects add $4.35 million. The combined maximum is $18.42 million. Either party can terminate with 90 days’ written notice.
That buys a defined support and consulting scope, rather than establishing a universal subscription price. It also shows where Hummingbird fits: a substantial operating partner, with ongoing responsibilities and project work, in the market between hospital IT, access operations and outside consulting.
UCHealth was Hummingbird’s initial strategic partner and investor. It led the announced $10 million Series A in June 2024 and returned for the $20 million Series B led by Health Velocity Capital in February 2025. Repeat investment accompanied a continuing customer relationship.
Teach the person who answers
The workforce argument returns in a UCHealth training collaboration. Limited classroom space prompted direct-to-remote onboarding. Hummingbird reported primary care agents reached independent calls eight days sooner. The program combined conversational intelligence, adaptive learning and role-based practice.
Hummingbird’s stated mission couples better access with good jobs. Seventeen of its first 90 hires worked in learning and development, according to Fleisher. His earlier visitor had given him a practical assignment. Ask what people need to do the job. Then make those things available.