About Us
Our Story
Voluware was conceived by a workflow-obsessed surgeon, brought to life by a longstanding expert in software engineering, and orchestrated by a VALER® enthusiast who is driven by helping customers and patients.
The concept of VALER was borne out of years of frustration in Dr. Steve Kim’s own pediatric surgical practice in the crucible of an unforgiving payer market treating the underserved children of Southern California. Disgusted that his patients had their surgeries and treatments unnecessarily delayed or outright denied by insurance payers due to prior authorizations, he decided to do something about it.
Steve turned to an accomplished veteran of the telecom and data communications world, Marty Staszak, who had been on the forefront of creating networking solutions for the telecom industry transitioning from analog to digital communication technology. Cathy Kim, who found her passion for serving patients and doctors working in her father’s busy cardiology practice, was brought on board for her natural empathy and passion for customer service critical to helping tireless administrators and office managers.
After years of research and constant iteration, Steve, Marty, and Cathy designed a solution to meet the workflow needs required by payers today to streamline and automate prior authorization bottlenecks. VALER is a rich, robust-yet-user-friendly cloud-based solution to manage, organize, and streamline today’s highly manual front-end administrative workflows around prior authorizations and referrals. Bring your own workflow, VALER will tailor it to your needs quickly and efficiently.
Mission
Our mission is simple… to remove administrative barriers that prevent patients from getting the care they need in the timely manner they deserve.
Vision
Our vision is to create a long-lasting partnership with our customers. Together we can eliminate manual input to dramatically improve organizational workflow and focus on delivering the highest quality care for patients.
Values
Our values are intrinsic to our vision:
- Serve our customers first.
- Exemplary teamwork, exemplary results.
- Raise our own bar.
Meet Our Team
Steve Kim, MD
Co-Founder, President and CMSO (Chief Marketing & Strategy Officer)
Dr. Steve Kim is a pediatric urologic surgeon. With over 20 years’ experience, his passion for innovation, and his value-based delivery research background, Dr. Kim was the right person at the right time to take on front-end management. He co-founded Voluware to solve issues around highly manual prior authorization, referral, and eligibility workflows that he encountered at his own practice while at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. Dr. Kim was formerly an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, where he served as the director of clinical research informatics for CHLA. He received his BS from Yale University and his MD from Cornell University Medical College. He earned a Master’s of Science in Clinical Epidemiology (MSCE) from the University of Pennsylvania, and his MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. He was also selected to attend the Harvard Business School for an intensive seminar in Value-Based Healthcare Delivery with Professor Michael Porter. When not hard at work, Dr. Kim enjoys family time with his wife and their two very active, athletic daughters.
Marty Staszak
Co-Founder, CEO/CTO
Marty is a California Bay Area native, and Silicon Valley veteran. A data communications expert with decades of technology innovation success, his background is rich in software architectures, engineering processes, and enterprise leadership at Intel, 3Com, NorTel, and a range of start-ups. Marty has been the driving force behind the conceptualization and commercialization of a broad range of software products, from large-scale distributed software systems to new communications protocols on embedded devices and custom chips. Marty, with his deep understanding of tech evolution, was the perfect person for Dr. Kim to partner with to create Voluware’s ground breaking cloud-based solution, VALER. Marty received his BS in Computer Science and Mathematics from the University of California, Davis, and eMBA from the University of California, San Diego. Away from work, Marty is a nationally competitive ultimate Frisbee player, and he continuously feeds his passion for natural science, history and philosophy with books and podcasts. He’s good at powering down when amongst family and friends.
Cathy Kim
COO
Cathy (no relation to Dr. Steve Kim) comes from a family of doctors. In fact, she worked at her father’s practice at a time when the administrative load had not yet taken over, and her father could put his patients first. That became her first and lasting view of the philosophy of giving all patients the best care possible, and it helped her carve her career path as well. Cathy focused primarily on start-ups for the last decade, including business development and operations for Amonix and Arzon Solar LLC. Prior to her operations roles, Cathy was a lawyer at Winston & Strawn, LLP, and Allen Matkins Leck Gamble & Mallory. Her law background has lent itself to her strong empathy towards Voluware’s customers and their patients as her sole focus is on bridging engineering with the customer experience. Cathy received her BA in History from Yale University, earned her JD from University of California Hastings College of Law, and received her MBA from the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business. In her free time, Cathy is an avid skier, golfer, and, hailing from Southern California, of course she can surf, too. Her hidden talent? She’s got great karaoke chops.