Canopii Collaborative founder and president Brent Benner recently sat down with HIStalk to discuss how his experience leading Epic’s Tapestry development team shaped the firm’s approach to Epic payer suite consulting and why purpose-built expertise matters for health plans navigating complex implementations.
Building Canopii Around a Gap in the Market
Before founding Canopii, Brent spent eight years at Epic, starting on the Tapestry implementation team and rising to director of product management for the payer suite. In that role, he served as the primary liaison between clients and Epic’s software engineering team to shape the product roadmap. That experience made one thing clear: while providers had no shortage of consulting support, health plans and managed care organizations lacked a firm that truly understood their operational world.
Canopii launched in 2021 to fill that gap. The firm now has approximately 70 consultants, with 60 focused specifically on Epic payer suite consulting across Tapestry, Payer Platform, CRM, and the broader suite of payer applications.
A Product Management Mindset Applied to Consulting
In the interview, Brent described how Canopii differentiates from other firms by bringing a product management mindset to every engagement. Rather than simply staffing projects, the team helps clients understand their operational metrics and translate Epic’s complexity into measurable outcomes. Whether supporting a new Tapestry implementation or providing ongoing application managed services, the focus stays on data-driven decisions that improve claims processing, medical management, and member experience.
One example Brent shared: a managed services client has significantly decreased interest and penalties on late claims payments, directly improving financial performance through better system optimization.
Enterprise-Scale Tapestry Implementations
Brent also reflected on leading large-scale Tapestry implementations during his time at Epic, including engagements involving millions of members that required scaling the payer suite team from roughly 20 implementation staff to over 60 in a short period. It was a formative experience in managing large-scale complexity under pressure, and one that directly informs how Canopii approaches enterprise-level health plan implementations today.
What’s Ahead for Payer-Provider Collaboration
Looking forward, Brent expressed optimism about the trajectory of payer-provider collaboration, citing CMS-0057-F and growing interoperability regulation as tailwinds. He also sees AI accelerating the adoption of integrated workflows between payers and providers, calling it fundamental to reducing the total cost of care.
On the company side, Canopii is expanding its application managed services offering, where end-to-end support enables the team to drive meaningful improvements in both IT and operational metrics for health plan clients.
Read the Full Interview
For the complete conversation, including Brent’s reflections on building company culture, the growth of Payer Platform among standalone commercial plans, and his advice on making incremental impact in a complex industry, read the full HIStalk interview here.
Interested in learning how Canopii can support your Epic payer suite implementation or optimization? Get in touch with our team.
