A dual-degree graduate from The Dartmouth Institute and The Tuck School of Business, Michael Cacchio is a consultant at Bain & Company, where he performs diligences for investors on a range of companies across the healthcare ecosystem.

When Michael started at the global management consulting firm, one of his first projects involved working with a large health insurer to evaluate opportunities for different value-based care models. Cacchio says his Dartmouth Institute degree gave him instant credibility with his consulting team. And thanks to Carrie Colla’s health care reform course, he had a deep understanding of emerging payment models, as well as which data sources to leverage for more information. His personal Dartmouth connections also proved useful, Cacchio says. He once contacted a former professor with a question about Medicare fund flows and received an immediate response.

More recently, Cacchio completed a project involving behavioral healthcare. “I loved that project because behavioral health is such an important part of overall health, but so often overlooked,” he says. “That’s something that I really came to appreciate in a course I took at Dartmouth on social and behavioral determinants of health.”

When working with massive amounts of data, Cacchio says he frequently keeps in mind the personal element—the colleagues he met at Dartmouth, the individual patient, or his brother, who is a physician’s assistant at an orthopedic practice. His ability to be empathetic while interpreting and analyzing data makes him especially proficient at helping major health care organizations improve the health of their communities. “It’s a really great time to be in healthcare; the increasing availability of data is helping us understand the health of populations and market dynamics in new and exciting ways,” he says.

"Before Bain, I was working in health care finance and sometimes it felt like the business side of the house didn’t understand the needs and nature of the medical work. My Dartmouth Institute degree gives me the technical fluency and credibility to help bridge this gap.

During my job search, the dual degree from The Dartmouth Institute and the Tuck School of Business helped to distinguish me from other MBAs."