About the "Author"
Let's Get Acquainted
Charles J. Lathram, III, FACMPE, CCP
About Charlie
Three decades. One conviction. Medicine belongs to physicians.
I've spent more than 30 years in the rooms where independent medicine lives or dies — the board rooms, the budget meetings, the late-night contract negotiations, and the quiet moments when a physician pulls me aside and asks, "Can we actually survive this?"
My answer has always been yes. But only if we're honest about the fight.
Independent medicine isn't a legacy worth preserving. It's a future worth building.
I'm Charlie Lathram — healthcare executive, author, advocate, and the voice behind "Weekly Musings", a weekly column dedicated to the strategies, stories, and hard truths of physician-owned practice.
WHAT I DO
By day, I serve as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Development Officer of Revere Health— Utah's largest independent physician-owned multispecialty medical group, with 400+ physicians, 100+ locations, and nearly $1 billion in projected revenue. I also serve concurrently as Treasurer and Managing Executive of Captive Assurance Solutions, Inc. (CASI), Revere's wholly-owned captive malpractice insurance company, and as the organization's designated executive over a $150M+ real estate portfolio.
I'm also the Recording Secretary of the Revere Health Board of Directors, Secretary/Treasurer of the Utah MGMA Board, and the Legislative Liaison for Utah MGMA — where I track, analyze, and advocate on state and federal healthcare legislation, including the Break Up Big Medicine Act.
That's a lot of titles. Here's what they all mean: I operate at the place where mission meets margin, where strategy meets survival, and where the fight for independence becomes either real work or just rhetoric. I've chosen the real work.
WHERE I'VE BEEN
Before Revere Health, I was CEO of Galen Medical Group in Chattanooga, Tennessee — a 200-provider, 800-employee independent multispecialty group where I doubled patient volume from 250,000 to 500,000+ over five years, expanded from 10 to 21 specialties, grew collections by more than 30%, and helped earn the organization recognition as Tennessee's first 5-star practice under Blue Cross Blue Shield.
I founded the Chattanooga Health Innovation Partnership — a multispecialty Clinically Integrated Network — from scratch. I built a captive-based self-insured health plan. I pioneered direct employer contracts and hybrid care delivery models before they were fashionable. And I've done it all because I believe physician-owned medicine is worth the work.
I've also served as Vice President of Physician Services at Lake Charles Memorial Health System, as President/CEO of Advanced Physician Solutions for over a decade, and as a healthcare consultant and strategist for physician groups across the Southeast and Mountain West.
WHY I WRITE
The doctor-patient relationship is the most important relationship in healthcare. Everything I do is in service of protecting it.
I started writing at independentdoc.org because I kept watching brilliant physicians — smart, dedicated, mission-driven people — get outmaneuvered not by better medicine, but by better-financed institutions with better lawyers and more lobbyists.
That isn't right. And it's fixable.
Every week, The Independence Playbook delivers one idea, one strategy, or one hard conversation about what it actually takes to keep your practice yours. Not theoretical. Not academic. Earned.
I've published more than 100 articles on healthcare leadership, practice strategy, and independent medicine. I'm the author of Charting the Course: Navigating the Seas of Leadership and My Walk With Him — and my third book, Physician, Lead Thyself, is in progress. I've spoken at Harvard University's Quality Colloquium, multiple MGMA national and regional conferences, and I've served as an adjunct instructor at the University of North Alabama.
CREDENTIALS AT A GLANCE
$950M+
Revenue Overseen
$150M+
Real Estate Portfolio
400+
Physicians Led
30+
Years in C-Suite
2 + 1
Books Published
I'm a Fellow of the American College of Medical Practice Executives (FACMPE), a Certified Compliance Professional (CCP), and currently pursuing a Master's in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Adler University. I hold a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
A WORD ABOUT THIS SITE
This isn't a corporate website. It's not a consulting pitch dressed up as content. Independentdoc.org exists because independent medicine deserves a voice that isn't beholden to the systems trying to absorb it.
If you're a physician, a practice administrator, a board member, or just someone who believes that medicine works best when doctors are in charge — you're in the right place.
Pull up a chair. Read something. Push back if you disagree. And whatever you do, don't go quietly.
— Charlie