Welcome to our Ecosystem Highlight series, where you’ll meet the innovators in our vast ecosystem of startup builders from across Florida, who are actively solving some of the world’s greatest challenges. We interviewed Andrew Shirer, Founder of Orchid Healthcare Technologies, an AI-native healthtech company helping providers catch preventable reimbursement issues before claims go out, reducing denials, delays, and rework

What were you doing previously, and what inspired you to join, launch, or help grow your company?

Before founding Orchid, I spent 14+ years in healthcare operations, working across payer operations, revenue cycle, core administration, technology, and financial workflows for health plans ranging from startups to some of the largest payers in the country. I kept seeing the same pattern: providers often did the clinical work, but reimbursement issues were discovered too late, after the claim was already denied, delayed, reduced, or sent into rework. Orchid was born from the belief that providers and revenue-cycle teams deserve better tools before the claim goes out, not just after something breaks.

What pain point is your company solving? What gets you excited to go to work every day?

Orchid is solving a simple but expensive problem: claims can look clean and still be hard to defend. The risk often sits in the medical record, coding and modifier logic, payer-policy context, or reviewer rationale, not just claim formatting. Today, too much of that risk is found after payer action, when staff has to stop what they are doing, reconstruct the story, and fight through denials, documentation requests, appeals, and rework. Orchid moves that review upstream. It helps revenue-cycle teams understand whether the claim is defensible before release, while keeping human billing, coding, and compliance judgment in control. What gets me excited is building something practical for the people doing the work: tools that make the evidence clearer, the rationale easier to trust, and the next action easier to decide.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in helping build or scale the company? How did you overcome it?

The biggest challenge has been separating what AI can do from what AI should do. In the healthcare revenue cycle, accuracy, accountability, and trust matter. The goal is not to replace billing, coding, or compliance judgment. The goal is to give those teams better evidence, clearer policy context, and more actionable guidance before a claim is released. We addressed this by designing our solution as a human-accountable claim review workflow, not an autonomous coding tool. Orchid recommends, explains, cites, and routes. The human reviewer stays in control. That approach has helped us keep the product practical, credible, and adoption-focused.

Where do you see your company headed next?

Orchid is starting close to home, working with outpatient specialties in Florida and beginning with podiatry. It is a focused area where documentation, coding, payer-policy context, and reimbursement workflows intersect in very practical ways. Our next step is to work with early provider partners, prove the product in real review workflows, and use that learning to expand into additional outpatient specialties. Over time, we believe the same claim-defensibility layer can support larger provider groups, health systems, and more complex reimbursement workflows.

Give us a tactical piece of advice that you’d share with someone building or growing a company.

Do not let perfection impede progress. Build enough to learn, get close to the people with the problem, and let real feedback sharpen the product. Listen carefully, stay coachable, and keep moving.

Why Florida?

Florida has been my home for more than 20 years, and it is where I want to build and serve this community. It also has the right ingredients for Orchid: a large healthcare market, a growing technology ecosystem, and a strong provider base.

Join the Community

Interested in joining a community of founders, builders, innovators, and startup teams while gaining access to member-exclusive events, programming, coaching, and resources throughout the year?

Explore membership and learn more about becoming part of Embarc Collective.