Medical and Dental Payer Advisory
Close Deals with Medical and Dental Payers Without Wasting 12-18 Months Figuring It Out
The right positioning, the right entry point, and the right relationships change everything.
MJC Growth Advisors helps healthcare companies position, access, and close with medical and dental payers and move deals forward once you're in the room.
Request a ConversationWhy Deals Stall
Wrong Value Prop
Selling features instead of ROI. Saying too much and landing nothing. Any one of these kills a payer conversation.
Endless Pilot Cycles
Pilots that never convert don't just waste time. They tire out payers and close the door on future opportunities.
No Internal Alignment
Payer decisions involve sales, finance, operations, IT, and actuarial. A single champion rarely moves the deal. Without internal consensus, deals stall.
Mistimed Outreach
Going to payers before you have proof points or a credible ROI story doesn't just fail. It burns the relationship for the next attempt.
Ignoring the Consultant and Broker Channel
Consultants and brokers are influencers and sometimes a checkpoint for the payer itself. Engage them wrong or too late and a deal dies quietly. I know when to tap that channel and have the relationships to open the doors.
Pricing and Contracting Misalignment
Getting to the finish line and losing on structure happens more than it should. PMPM, fee for service, shared savings: how you price and contract matters as much as the pitch.
How I Help You Win
Positioning & Value Prop
I translate what you do into the language payers buy: cost reduction, utilization improvement, member outcomes. I build the business case your internal champion needs to move the deal.
Includes payer-facing narrative, ROI framework, and carrier-ready one-pager.
Go-To-Market Strategy
Not every carrier is the right first call. I map the right buyers, segment by channel (commercial, Medicaid/MCO, Medicare Advantage), and sequence outreach so you're not starting in the wrong room.
You leave with a prioritized target list and a plan to work it.
Market Access & Deal Execution
I help you earn the right conversations, navigate internal dynamics at the carrier level, and stay active through term sheet.
Not introductions. Execution.
Revenue Architecture
I structure your commercial approach from the ground up: team, comp model, channel sequencing, revenue motion.
Get it right the first time.
Who I Work With
If you're building a product or service that needs to live inside a medical and dental payer's ecosystem, this is built for you.
- Digital health startups
- AI platforms
- Telehealth and teledentistry companies
- Mobile dentistry companies
- Medical device companies
- Medical, dental, and behavioral health integration companies
- Companies entering or scaling in payer markets
- Companies selling through consultants and brokers
If you're not sure we can help, just ask.
Engagement Model
Every engagement is unique. Some clients need one piece, others need all three. I scope around your specific situation and goals.
Strategy & Positioning
→ Fixed engagement
Defined scope and timeline. I sharpen your value prop, build your payer narrative, and get your materials ready for carrier conversations.
Market Access & Execution
→ Upfront fee + success-based component
I help you earn the right conversations, navigate internal payer dynamics, and move deals forward. Incentives are aligned-I win when you win.
Fractional CRO
→ Scoped per engagement
You get the full revenue function without the full-time hire. Go-to-market design, pricing strategy, ideal hire profiles, building and training your sales and account management team, and introductions to the right people. Everything you need to build a revenue engine that scales.
The Credentials Behind the Work
Michael Cembrola
Owner, MJC Growth Advisors
Michael Cembrola is the founder of MJC Growth Advisors and brings more than 20 years of executive leadership across the healthcare and dental ecosystem, spanning payer, provider, and employer markets.
His career was built inside the organizations his clients are trying to sell into. As Vice President of National and Special Accounts at Delta Dental, the largest dental payer in the United States with 40M members / $11B annual revenue, he led the national sales team bringing in hundreds of millions in new revenue annually while growing existing business through new product expansion. He did not just observe how payers buy - he was on the other side of the table helping make those decisions.
As CRO at Onsite Dental, the largest mobile dentistry company in the US and a $100M organization, he rebuilt the entire revenue engine after four years of stalled growth, expanding existing accounts and closing several new enterprise clients across marquee employers including Meta, Amazon, Intel, Boeing, Nvidia, Eli Lilly, ConocoPhillips, Comcast, and Sony Pictures.
As CRO at First Tracks he scaled a behavioral health company from launch to 80,000 covered lives in one year, including a large medical payer contract and a health system with 2.5 million members.
Earlier in his career he served as AVP of Sales at Providence Health Plan, a 650,000 member multi-state health plan, where he expanded the product portfolio to include dental and ancillary benefits and led his team to exceed 350% of sales quota.
Most advisors understand one side of the healthcare market. Michael has operated across all of them. Most companies do not fail because their product is wrong. They fail because they lack the positioning, relationships, and execution discipline to navigate a complex buying process. That is exactly what this practice was built to fix.
Active Payer Relationships
Deep relationships and active work with Aetna, Cigna, Delta Dental, BCBS, Anthem, Humana, UnitedHealthcare, MetLife, Guardian, and more