Cut through the noise

AI you can audit.
Models you can defend.

A boutique healthcare data and AI consultancy for the organizations, and the counsel, that cannot deploy black-box AI. We use AI to build deterministic, auditable models that automate the decisions that have to hold up. The model reads and writes; the money, coverage, and risk decisions run as versioned, auditable code.

Enterprise & Research Adopt modern AI inside your walls, with no PHI leaving the network.
Mid-Market & Rural Stabilize margin and operations without adding headcount.
Litigation & Fraud Forensic analytics that survive cross-examination, under counsel.
What we solve

One craft, applied where the risk is highest

We use AI to build deterministic, auditable models for the decisions that carry the most risk in healthcare. Each one is engineered for the people who will challenge it: a CFO underwriting savings, a compliance committee, an auditor, or opposing counsel.

Revenue Cycle & Denial Prevention

Deterministic, auditable coding and denial-prevention models that lower cost-to-collect and recover revenue, built so a CFO can underwrite the savings and an auditor can trust them.

For revenue-cycle leaders →

Accounting & Close Automation

Deterministic, auditable automation for the finance back office (physician compensation, the month-end close, and management reporting), where every dollar runs as versioned code that reconciles to source.

For finance leaders →

Operational Performance Improvement

Lean process engineering, labor and productivity, workforce management, and throughput, led by a performance-improvement leader who built these programs at the scale of the nation's largest health system, AI-accelerated.

For operations leaders →

Value-Based Care & Risk Economics

CMS bundled-payment, ACO, and risk-contract economics, modeled directly from claims with a deterministic risk and acuity engine (HCC, MS-DRG, and service-line classification) that sizes opportunity, risk-adjusts fairly, and targets the right partners.

For value-based-care leaders →

Secure AI Enablement

HIPAA-eligible cloud AI inside your own walls, with authorized-view, no-copy access, so your team adopts modern AI without stalling in security and compliance review. The same approach at any team size.

For analytics and innovation leaders →

Litigation & Fraud Analytics

Privilege-grade forensic analytics for outside counsel, with defensible, reproducible methods engineered to withstand a Daubert challenge.

For counsel →

A transparent glass cube containing an ordered lattice of indigo data points, representing auditable glass-box AI
Glass-box, not black-box

Built to be challenged

Most AI in healthcare and in litigation fails on the same point: a CFO cannot underwrite it, a compliance committee cannot clear it, and an expert cannot defend it under cross-examination, because it is a black box. We build the AI that passes that test.

  • The LLM reads and writes. The decisions run as deterministic, versioned code.
  • Documented assumptions, frozen reference tables, and false-positive validation.
  • Auditability and human-in-the-loop are now a buying gate, and what survives a Daubert challenge.
  • Senior people do the work, with a credentialed core team and a vetted specialist network.

Talk through your use case

How we engage

Three ways in

Advisory Services

Principal-led strategy, fractional leadership (1-3 days/week), or focused consulting sprints (3-4 weeks) on the decisions that matter most.

Learn more →

Delivery Services

AI-accelerated, team-based execution and transformation with SLAs and principal oversight. Senior people do the work, no junior hand-offs.

Learn more →

AI Governance & Compliance

SOC 2 readiness, HIPAA-compliant AI deployment, model risk management, and governance frameworks for responsible adoption.

Learn more →

New to AI and not sure where to start? Our fixed-scope AI Strategy Workshop separates fund-now operational analytics from longer-horizon innovation and gives leadership a governance and ROI story to act on.

Proof

Results that hold up

Representative, anonymized results from client work. Some figures are modeled or small-sample; we are precise about that in the detail.

75,000+
ICD-10 codes in an auditable taxonomy
~95%
Weighted E&M coding accuracy
165M+
Hospital price records benchmarked
26 → 10
Days month-end close, walled env
$1–2K/mo
No-copy PHI cloud AI stood up

Plus a privilege-grade forensic methodology that risk-tiered a large provider population for outside counsel and held its tiering through a post-delivery refinement, and a deterministic E&M rule engine that fixed 29% of baseline rule-application errors.

How we work

From the decision to a model you own

01

Frame

Understand the decision that has to hold up, and who will challenge it.

02

Build

Use AI at build time; ship deterministic, auditable models and rules.

03

Validate

False-positive checks, within-dataset calibration, documented methodology.

04

Transfer

You own the model. We document, train, and hand off.

Trusted by

HCA Healthcare iScribe Tessellate Mployer Advisor NaviPath Orthopaedic Solutions Management

From Fortune 5 to rural critical-access

Daniel Heacock

About Daniel Heacock

Founder and Principal of Signal Forward. I started the firm to do what its name says: cut through the noise in healthcare data to find the signal that moves a decision, then make sure it holds up where it counts.

Before Signal Forward I led global analytics at Optum and worked in HCA Healthcare's Clinical Services Group. We build AI you can audit: the model reads and writes, and the money and risk decisions run as deterministic, auditable code that a CFO can underwrite and an expert can defend.

Senior people do the work here, backed by a credentialed core team and a vetted specialist network. From the nation's largest health system to rural critical-access hospitals.

“Better data, better decisions, better outcomes. Everything else is just noise.”
Get started

Ready to deploy AI you can actually defend?

Tell us about the decision you need to automate, and who has to be able to trust it. We will review and reach out within 24 hours.

Advisory, delivery, AI governance, or a fixed-scope AI Strategy Workshop, tailored to your stage and goals.