Stephen Bekanich Joins BrainCheck as Chief Medical Officer

BrainCheck Inc. has recruited Stephen Bekanich, M.D., to the firm as chief medical officer (CMO) to lead its clinical strategy and help expand its value-based and collaborative care initiatives as the company continues scales nationally.

Dr. Bekanich has decades of experience in geriatric medicine, palliative care, accountable care organizations, and health system leadership. Most recently, he co-founded and served as CMO of Iris Healthcare, a disease-specific advanced care planning service focused on improving outcomes for patients with serious illness that was later acquired by Aledade in 2022. Previously, he was CEO of Ascension Health’s Texas ACO and CMO of the Cigna–Ascension Health insurance joint venture, where he led large-scale value-based care initiatives across diverse patient populations. Dr. Bekanich has received multiple awards recognizing excellence in medical leadership, healthcare innovation, teaching, and patient and family satisfaction.

“Dr. Bekanich has deep experience operating at the intersection of clinical care and risk management,” BrainCheck CEO Chris Loughlin said. “As cognitive impairment becomes an increasingly urgent priority for clinicians and health systems, his leadership will help us accelerate our clinical impact and further integrate BrainCheck into collaborative and value-based care frameworks.”

Dr. Bekanich has created multiple palliative care programs nationwide and has held academic appointments at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the University of Utah’s Medical Center. He currently serves on the faculty at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas in Austin.

Dr. Bekanich earned his medical degree from the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo and completed his residency at University of Utah Health.

As CMO, Dr. Bekanich will help align BrainCheck’s platform with value-based and collaborative care frameworks, supporting the integration of cognitive assessment and care plan tools into coordinated, longitudinal management strategies.

“Health systems are increasingly accountable for outcomes, quality, and total cost of care, especially for complex, aging populations,” Dr. Bekanich stated. “BrainCheck provides clinicians with actionable insights into cognitive health, and I’m excited to help expand how we integrate those insights into collaborative, value-based care models.”

Dr. Bekanich joins BrainCheck during a period of continued growth. In 2025, more than 150 new practices and health systems adopted BrainCheck, expanding the platform to more than 500 practices nationwide and deepening partnerships with primary care groups, health systems, and value-based organizations.

BrainCheck is a clinically validated digital platform for cognitive assessment and care, anchored by BrainCheck Assess—its flagship U.S. Food and Drug Administration Class II digital cognitive assessment. The platform delivers standardized, repeatable cognitive data across clinical and research settings.

BrainCheck’s customers include Bon Secours, UPMC, and Springfield Clinic, as well as 46 research hospitals, including The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford University. Clinicians use BrainCheck’s validated screeners and care planning tools to build tailored protocols, with more than 640,000 cognitive assessments and 14,000 care plans completed to date. BrainCheck is intended to support clinical decision-making and is not designed to function as a stand-alone diagnostic tool.