How Much Does the Integral Embodied Leadership Cohort Cost?
Last updated: May 2026
The Integral Embodied Leadership Cohort for the Healthcare C-Suite is scoped per cohort, not per seat. Cost is determined by cohort size (8–12 participants), geographic distribution for nine monthly two-day intensives, and whether the mid-program team intervention is elected. IHS does not publish a per-seat rate card. Publicly available benchmarks: CCL Leadership at the Peak runs $14,500 per participant for five days; HBS Executive Education healthcare programs run $16,000–$56,000 per participant per program; Korn Ferry senior executive cohorts run $15,000–$25,000 per participant. The IHS cohort spans nine months — 18 group intensive days, nine individual coaching sessions, pre-cohort assessment, and a 90-day post-cohort follow-up — delivered by Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD, CCEP.
Why IHS Does Not Publish Per-Seat Pricing
Three structural reasons determine this, not a preference for opacity.
Principal-delivery scarcity. The cohort is delivered by Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD, CCEP — not by associate coaches or franchise-trained facilitators. That means the engagement is constrained by one principal's time, and priced accordingly. There is no productized per-seat rate that can be quoted independent of how many seats are in the cohort and what the cohort's logistics require.
The team intervention is elected, not standard. The mid-program one- or two-day working session with each participant's own leadership team is an optional component. Organizations that elect it for all 8–12 participants expand scope materially relative to organizations that elect it for none. A published per-seat price would misrepresent either scope.
Geographic distribution drives logistics. Nine monthly two-day in-person intensives for a nationally distributed cohort — a health plan CEO in Minneapolis, a specialty pharmacy CCO in Phoenix, a PBM CMO in New Jersey — require logistics that a regionally concentrated cohort does not. The cost difference is real and cannot be averaged into a published rate card without overcharging one cohort and undercharging another.
How Cohort Cost Compares to Standard Programs
Published competitor pricing provides the reference frame. These are publicly disclosed rates from the organizations themselves.
| Program | Provider | Format | Published Rate | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leadership at the Peak | Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) | Residential cohort, C-suite | $14,500 per participant | 5 days |
| Healthcare Leadership programs | Harvard Business School Executive Education | Residential cohort, case-method | $16,000–$56,000 per participant | 3–5 days per program |
| Senior executive cohort formats | Korn Ferry | Cohort plus individual coaching | $15,000–$25,000 per participant | Multi-day |
| Integral Embodied Leadership Cohort | IHS — Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD, CCEP | 9-month cohort: 18 group days + 9 individual sessions + team intervention + post-cohort | Scoped per cohort — contact for proposal | 9 months |
The structural difference: CCL, HBS, and Korn Ferry deliver cognitive frameworks and leadership competency models at the class-cohort scale. None addresses the autonomic layer of executive decision quality, none includes a structured intervention with the participant's own leadership team, and none addresses the moral injury and meaning-and-purpose dimension that distinguishes a vocation crisis from a skills gap. For a healthcare C-suite carrying the simultaneous load of CMS-0057-F implementation, prior-authorization rule churn, AI-governance questions, and PE-integration pressure, those omissions are the gap.
Factors That Affect Cohort Cost
Four variables determine the scope — and therefore the cost — of any cohort engagement.
| Factor | Lower-Cost Configuration | Higher-Cost Configuration |
|---|---|---|
| Cohort size | 8 participants (minimum for group dynamic) | 12 participants (cap) |
| Geographic distribution | Regionally concentrated — in-person intensives at one location | Nationally distributed — rotating or central-hub logistics for 18 intensive days |
| Team intervention | Not elected, or elected by a minority of participants | Elected by all participants; two-day format per team |
| Post-cohort follow-up | Standard: three monthly 60-minute sessions per participant | Extended follow-up by negotiation |
Principal-delivery scarcity premium. The cohort is not staffed by associates. Thomas G. Goddard, JD, PhD, CCEP is the sole delivery principal — the only CCEP-credentialed consultant in U.S. healthcare with 40+ years across U.S. healthcare regulation, policy, and organizational practice, including COO and General Counsel of URAC, VP and General Counsel of NYLCare Health Plans (500,000 members), and Special Assistant to a U.S. governor on Medicaid policy. That credential combination cannot be replicated by any executive education provider, leadership coaching firm, or wellness vendor. It carries a scarcity premium that reflects real supply constraint, not positioning.
What Each Participant Receives
The cohort engagement covers five distinct program components. Each is included in the cohort scope — none is billable separately.
- Pre-cohort individual nervous-system assessment — structured evaluation of each participant's autonomic baseline, regulation patterns, and leadership-load profile. Conducted by the principal. Findings are confidential to the participant and used to calibrate their individual arc within the cohort year.
- Nine monthly two-day group intensives — 18 days across the year of structured somatic, relational, cognitive, and meaning-and-purpose work with the full cohort. In-person where geography permits; hybrid for distributed cohorts.
- Nine monthly individual coaching sessions — 60 minutes per month with the principal, calibrated to each participant's specific organizational context and developmental arc.
- Mid-program team intervention (elected) — a one- or two-day working session with the participant's own leadership team — not the cohort — focused on the four-quadrant state of the team as a collective instrument.
- 90-day post-cohort follow-up — three monthly 60-minute individual sessions supporting integration of cohort-year gains back into full organizational pace.
The Cost of Not Engaging
The investment in the cohort must be weighed against the cost of the conditions it addresses. The data on leadership failure in healthcare is specific.
- Hospital CEO turnover: 16–18% annually (American College of Healthcare Executives, 2023 CEO Survey). Replacing a C-suite executive costs 1.5–2x annual total compensation — $750,000–$1,000,000 for a $500,000 total-comp executive when search, onboarding, and productivity-gap costs are included.
- Healthcare M&A integration failure: Only 14% of healthcare M&A reaches successful integration (Bain via VALUWIT). Across industries, 70–90% of M&A deals fail to deliver projected value (Bain). The leading indicator in the 0–36 month post-close window is executive attrition and leadership-team dysfunction — not strategy quality.
- Physician burnout and organizational factors: Trockel et al. found that organizational factors account for approximately 70% of physician burnout variance (Trockel et al., JAMA Internal Medicine, 2018). The executive lever is structural: the C-suite makes the decisions that determine the organizational conditions the clinical workforce operates in.
- Medicaid financial pressure: Independent rural hospitals are projected to lose $465 million in patient revenue in 2026 due to federal Medicaid cuts — an average of $630,665 per hospital, representing 56% of yearly net income (Families USA). Executives leading Medicaid-serving organizations in 2026 are carrying mission-sustainability questions that standard leadership development was not built for.
- Moral injury at the executive layer: The PNHP 2026 Moral Injury in Medicine Report (Dean & Talbot, 2018) distinguishes moral injury from burnout and documents why resilience-framing produces ineffective interventions. For a long-tenured C-suite executive structurally implicated in care decisions they find inadequate, the cost is measured in decision quality degradation, attrition risk, and institutional drift — not in a wellness score.
A cohort that retains two senior executives who would otherwise have left — or that sustains the decision quality of a leadership team through a major integration — returns its cost on a single event. The reference point is not the program fee; it is the cost of the conditions the program addresses.
How the 9-Month Cohort Is Structured
The program runs across three arcs. Understanding the arc explains why nine months is the minimum viable scope — and why shorter formats do not produce the same outcomes.
Months 1–3: Individual Foundation
The first three months build the individual somatic and relational foundation. Participants learn to read autonomic state as real-time data about decision quality, relational fit, and organizational readiness. This layer requires repeated practice across multiple contexts before it becomes available under organizational load — a five-day residential program cannot replicate the integration that three months of monthly intensive-plus-coaching produces.
Months 4–6: Collective Extension and Team Intervention
The middle three months extend the individual foundation to the collective level. The group deepens as a peer community; individual practices begin applying in real organizational moments. The mid-program team intervention — the one- or two-day working session with each participant's own leadership team — occurs here, bringing the individual work into direct contact with the team the participant leads.
Months 7–9: Meaning, Vocation, and Institutional Sustainability
The final three months address the long-term sustainability question: the executive's relationship to their work and to the institution they are building. For long-tenured executives, this is frequently the most consequential work of the year. It requires the somatic and relational foundation the first six months have built — which is why standard leadership development, which operates only at the cognitive layer, never reaches it.
Budget Planning by Phase
For organizations planning a cohort, here is a practical framework for phasing budget allocation across the program arc.
Pre-Cohort Phase (Months −2 to 0): Scoping and Onboarding
- Proposal review and engagement scoping with IHS
- Participant selection and interview process (conducted by the principal)
- Mutual confidentiality agreement execution among participants
- Pre-cohort individual assessments (included in cohort scope)
- Logistics planning for in-person intensive locations (if regionally concentrated)
Program Year (Months 1–9): Core Engagement
- Nine monthly two-day group intensives — in-person or hybrid
- Nine monthly 60-minute individual coaching sessions per participant
- Mid-program team interventions (if elected) — one or two days per participant team
- Participant time: 18 intensive days plus nine 60-minute coaching sessions across the year
Post-Cohort Phase (Months 10–12): Integration
- Three monthly 60-minute individual follow-up sessions per participant
- Integration of cohort-year gains back into full organizational pace
- Assessment of what each participant is now ready to do institutionally
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the cohort priced per seat or per cohort?
Per cohort. The engagement is scoped based on cohort size, geographic distribution, and whether the team intervention is elected. There is no published per-seat rate. Contact IHS for a proposal calibrated to your organization's structure and cohort size.
What is the sponsorship model — does each participant pay individually?
Most cohort engagements are commissioned and funded by the sponsoring organization — the health plan, PBM, specialty pharmacy, or managed care organization — not by individual participants. The primary buyer is the CEO, CHRO, or Board. This framing is deliberate: the cohort is an organizational investment in leadership infrastructure and retention, not a per-participant tuition purchase.
How does the cohort cost compare to what BetterUp or similar platforms charge?
BetterUp, Lyra, Spring Health, and similar platforms charge per-seat subscription fees — typically $300–$500 per month per user for app-mediated coaching access. The evidence base for individual wellbeing apps in healthcare executive leadership development is thin, and none of these platforms operates at the team or organizational level, addresses the somatic-regulation foundation of executive decision quality, or is delivered by a principal with regulatory fluency in health plans, PBMs, specialty pharmacies, and MBHOs. The cost comparison is not primarily financial; the programs are structurally different products addressing different problems.
How far in advance should we engage IHS for a cohort?
The cohort runs on a rolling-application basis as openings become available. Given the 8–12 participant ceiling and principal-delivery constraint, cohort capacity is limited. Early inquiry is recommended — organizations that identify a cohort start date typically engage IHS 3–6 months in advance to allow the participant selection and interview process to be completed before the first intensive.
Can a single organization send multiple executives to the same cohort?
Yes, and it is common. Health plans, PBMs, and specialty pharmacies frequently send two to four C-suite members to the same cohort — a CEO, CMO, COO, and CCO, for example. The mutual confidentiality agreement governs what is shared across participants from the same organization; the principal does not share individual coaching content across participants regardless of organizational affiliation.
Is the team intervention available as a standalone engagement?
The mid-program team intervention is designed for participants who have completed the individual somatic and relational foundation in the first six months of the cohort. It is not available as a standalone team-building or offsite engagement — the intervention's effectiveness depends on the individual work the participant brings into it. See the Leadership-Team Integration Assessment for a standalone diagnostic option.
Can the cohort be run for executives from a single organization?
A single-organization cohort is possible if the organization can populate 8–12 participants. The peer-learning dynamic that is a structural feature of the cohort — executives from different organizations learning from each other's live situations — is attenuated in a single-organization cohort. For organizations seeking single-organization formats, IHS recommends discussing the tradeoffs with the principal before committing to that structure.
What is the application and selection process?
Each prospective participant is interviewed by the principal before admission. The interview is a fit screen, not a credential screen. The program works when every participant is genuinely willing to have their own leadership examined — not only their strategy or their team — and when the cohort mix includes enough functional diversity to produce peer-learning across the year. There is no formal credential requirement; the selection criteria are readiness and fit, not title or tenure.
Related Resources
- Integral Embodied Leadership Cohort for the Healthcare C-Suite — full program description
- Cohort vs. Executive Coaching vs. Executive Education — structural comparison
- Integral Clinician-Leader Somatic Regulation Cohort — 6-month program for charge nurses, medical directors, and department chairs
- Leadership-Team Integration Assessment — 3-week diagnostic for the senior leadership team
- Integral Executive Coaching — individual 6–12 month engagement for executives not suited to a cohort format
- Board-Level Human-Capital Risk Advisory — quarterly retainer advising the board on human-capital risk
- Integral Workforce & Leadership Sciences — practice line overview
Ready to Get Started?
Schedule a no-obligation consultation with IHS. We will discuss the cohort structure, assess whether the program fits your organization's current conditions, and provide a scoped proposal for your review.
Cohort openings are limited. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis as capacity becomes available. Early inquiry is recommended.