Jeff Hunnicutt to Bring Community Oncology Roots to New Role as Navista COO

Jeff Hunnicutt, fresh off 8 years as CEO of Highlands Oncology in Arkansas, will join Navista as the oncology alliance’s chief operating officer (COO), effective August 3, 2026, according to a statement. Hunnicutt brings another well-known community oncology leader to Cardinal Health’s venture into oncology practice support services, less than a year after the arrival of Diana Verilli, MS, as general manager for Navista.

Many had been waiting to see where Hunnicutt would go after he left Highlands on June 19, following an extraordinary run where the practice gained a national reputation for its use of technology and operational innovation alongside physician leadership. Hunnicutt’s newly launched Substack series suggested he was staying in the field (yes, he’s going to keep writing). His move to Navista pairs him with both Verrilli and with Chief Medical Officer Lalan Wilfong, MD, who joined the alliance in April.

Prior to Highlands, Hunnicutt had served as chief operations officer at Northwest Medical Specialties in Washington State and as executive director of the Quality Cancer Care Alliance, which has since become a founding member of the ONCare Alliance.

“Throughout his career, Jeff has helped community oncology practices grow, innovate and thrive—all while keeping physicians and patients at the center of care,” Verrilli said in the announcement. “Jeff's deep community oncology experience and proven operational leadership will play a critical role in growing our alliance, supporting the long-term success of our member practices and enabling more patients to access high-quality, physician-led cancer care in their communities.”

In an interview ahead of the announcement, Hunnicutt described the COO role as centered on helping independent oncology practices become operationally stronger so physicians can spend more time with patients. His responsibilities will span practice operations, operational excellence, practice integration, and radiation, but he framed the bigger mission more broadly: helping practices navigate an increasingly complex health care environment shaped by reimbursement pressure, staffing challenges, and regulatory demands.

“My job is to help remove as much of that operational burden as possible,” Hunnicutt said, “so that when we make practices stronger operationally, we help preserve the independence and allow them to continue delivering the high quality care that they've become known for close to home.”

Hunnicutt named 4 challenges he sees as top of mind heading into the role:

• financial sustainability amid ongoing reimbursement pressure;
• administrative complexity around prior authorization, payer requirements, compliance and analytics;
• workforce transformation as automation and AI reshape how work gets done; and
• the need for practices to have trusted operational partners willing to work alongside them rather than dictate to them.

On the policy front, he said he’s encouraged that issues that have long affected community oncology—such as pharmacy benefit managers, 340B, and site-neutral payment—are finally getting sustained attention from legislators, even if translating that attention into action remains a heavier lift.

For example, 340B “has been abused over the last 15 to 20 years,” Hunnicutt said. “It's built a whole lot more marble lobbies in big hospitals than it has actually helped patients. It’s really good to see where legislators are…. The light bulb is starting to go on.”

For practices looking for a managed services organization (MSO) or alliance, how do they balance the use of centralized services with their desire for independence? Can the level of participation vary?

Hunnicutt said among MSOs, drug purchasing is a near-universal component, along with some centralized billing and finance functions, but beyond that, there is room for practices to customize how they use shared services.

“I don't think that any of the MSOs have necessarily done a tremendous job of really helping to hit that sweet spot with practices, so that they're delivering exactly what practices need. But every practice is a little bit different,” he said. “Some things are going to be required, but then others, I think there's room for flexibility.”

From IT to Oncology Management

Hunnicutt took an unconventional path to his current role: he came up through the ranks of information technology (IT), which was viewed as a support function.

“Today, it’s part of nearly every strategic decision that an organization makes,” he said. “AI is accelerating that shift because implementing AI isn’t primarily a technology project anymore—it’s more of an operational transformation project, even a core governance project if you’re doing it the right way.”

That means understanding not just the technology pieces but how everything works—from physician adoption to workflows. “Looking back, IT taught me how systems fit together. But it also put me into a role where I saw how the organization ran, and I saw how it could change because I was touching every department.”

Hunnicutt isn’t sure other health care leaders will follow his path, but he expects they will all have some exposure to technology. During Hunnicutt’s tenure, Highlands became known for its willingness to take on technology initiatives. For example, work at Highlands has created evidence in support of Canopy’s system of remote therapeutic monitoring with patient-reported outcomes, leading the way toward technology-driven systems for supporting patients who receive complex cancer therapies as outpatients.¹ In late June, Hunnicutt served as the spokesperson on the release of a tool from the Community Oncology Alliance to help practices select vendors in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).²

What’s Exciting About Navista Right Now

What excites Hunnicutt about bringing his experience at Highlands to the broader network at Navista? In short, it’s the chance to take the lessons he learned over 8 years at Highlands and “help practices across the country.”

“One of the lessons that I learned when I was at Highlands was that innovation isn't really just about technology; it's about solving meaningful problems,” he said. “That means that those problems can take on a variety of different flavors. Every practice has people who are incredibly creative inside of the practices. You have people like physicians, nurses, pharmacists. The challenge isn't necessarily finding good ideas; it's creating an environment where those ideas can be tested, they can be measured, and they can be shared across the network.

“That's what really excites me about working across the network. Instead of one organization learning from its own experience and its own experience only, you have the opportunity for dozens of organizations to learn from each other,” Hunnicutt said.

He offered AI as an example. “The answer isn't to deploy AI everywhere; it's to identify where it creates measurable value for patients, for physicians, and for staff,” he said. “And so when one practice finds something that works, the entire network can benefit.

“So, I get excited about finding those ‘sandbox,’ or ‘incubator’ type practices that are inside of the network. Who are the ones that like going first? Who are the ones that want to take on that responsibility to kind of blaze new trails and then use their experience to help better the other practices?”

Navista’s size, at 50 practices and just over 100 providers, is “large enough to bring meaningful resources to practices, but it's still small and agile enough to move quickly, which I think is a tremendous advantage,” Hunnicutt said. “Health care is changing faster than ever, and practices need partners who can move with them and not necessarily slow them down.”

References

1. Essell JH, Derman BA, Kolodziej MA, et al. Impact of remote therapeutic monitoring with patient-reported outcomes on hospitalization in real-world patients receiving therapy for metastatic solid tumors. J Clin Oncol. 2026;44(suppl 16):abstr 11005. doi:10.1200/JCO.2026.44.16_suppl.11005
2. Caffrey M. COA offers playbook to help community oncology practices navigate AI partnerships. AJMC. June 29, 2026. Accessed July 27, 2026. https://www.ajmc.com/view/coa-offers-playbook-to-help-community-oncology-practices-navigate-ai-partnerships