Zocdoc’s chief business officer wants to make a ‘healthcare access infrastructure’

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Richard Fine, Zocdoc’s chief business officer, has been with the company, which helps match patients and providers, for 11 years. Recently—other than being an ad for your favorite podcast—the company announced it was implementing an AI voice agent, Zo, into its scheduling assistance service in May.

From chief commercial officer to VP of strategy, he’s now working closely with the company’s CEO to “operationalize the company’s long-term direction,” he told Healthcare Brew. Fine spoke with us about the changes he’s made at the company and what he’s most—and least—optimistic about in the healthcare industry.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What’s the best change you’ve made or seen at your workplace?

The biggest change is the one we’re undertaking now: evolving Zocdoc from a marketplace into healthcare access infrastructure. Instead of just helping patients book on Zocdoc, we’re focused on making care bookable wherever patients start, whether that’s Google, Healthgrades, payer directories, or AI platforms. We don’t want to own a single front door to care—we want to make sure all of them actually open.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?

People assume an executive’s job is about running things forever. In reality, I’m always trying to put myself out of business. Whenever I take on an area—whether it’s something new or something underperforming—the goal is to get it to a point where it no longer needs me: the right leader is in place, the right structure, the right processes. Then I hand it over and move on. That transience is deliberate.

A lot of up-and-coming leaders think being valuable means building huge teams or making everything run through you. I think often the opposite is true. Being able to step in, fix what needs fixing, replace yourself, and walk away without everything collapsing is secretly the way to be more valuable.

What healthcare trend are you most optimistic about?

I’m most optimistic about the growing push toward consumer-driven healthcare. For a long time, access has been treated as someone else’s problem. But it’s still too hard for patients to get care when they need it. What’s changing now is that there’s real pressure—at the system and federal level—to make the first step in care actually work for patients.

What healthcare trend are you least optimistic about?

I’m least optimistic about the idea that AI—or any technology—will fix healthcare on its own. I am old enough to remember when [electronic health records] would fix everything. And while they have done some good, I don’t think anyone would say the big promises were delivered. I’m wary of how often AI is talked about as a solution that simply bypasses the complexity of the system, as if incentives, workflows, and regulation can be wished away with the word.

For providers, AI is so valuable for scribing and more. And for patients, it can help them understand their health and ask better questions. But demand without a path to action is frustrating. The hard part is turning that intent into real care in a fragmented system. Technology matters, but unless it’s paired with incentives and infrastructure that help patients actually get booked and seen, it won’t deliver better outcomes on its own.