Achieving Operational Excellence in Healthcare: AI, Training, and Effective Communication with Troy Schaffer and Frederik Mueller

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the pricing show. I'm your host, Vivek Nanda and today we are here to discuss my favorite topics in the Healthcare World, Healthcare Operations and Customer Service. And for this, I've gotten two very experienced folks here with me. I have Troy Schaffer and Frederik Mueller

[00:00:39] and Troy, I would start from you, let yourself use yourself first please. Very things, I am Troy Schaffer, Vice President of Context Center Operations with Scan Health Plan. And it's just been a great journey to be in this space. Welcome, Troy. Thank you. Frederik?

[00:01:02] Yeah, hi. My name is Frederik Mueller. I am the co-founder and CEO of Third Way Health. We are a technology-enabled and modern healthcare BPO company. And yeah, likewise, I'm really glad to be here and thank you for the invite.

[00:01:19] Great. So we will straight away dive into the business. And I would start with you, Troy, for this question. So in your roles, both of you, you have innovated the way your organization's

[00:01:35] interact with customers. So could you share a pivotal change that you implemented, that transform the customer interaction? And how it has impacted the business outcomes? Sure. A couple of things I would say. One is, I really believe people are our greatest asset and however you train them

[00:02:00] and how they engage with your members is going to be a big part of your reputation, your brand and how that interacts. So first thing I did, we were called member service representatives when I got there that was the team names, their titles.

[00:02:15] And I just didn't, I couldn't vibe with that representative. I said, we are truly advocating for our members.

[00:02:21] And so we went through and changed every single title to member service advocate. And so that's what we do is not for us who we advocate on behalf of our members. And it really resonated throughout not only like our team, but the organization and our members as well.

[00:02:37] I had to present it to our board or board approved it. So it was a really big deal, but I think just foundationally getting that change there. We really helped resonate in how we interact with our members and with our friends playing.

[00:02:52] I love that because you know, I've spoken it out many times to many people that in healthcare we always think trying to find the magic wand.

[00:03:01] We always try to go to tech but we forget about the people. It's actually other way. It's always like people first and then we try to find what we can enable people.

[00:03:11] That's why I love this one that this is 100% sure how this might have been taken by everybody in the organization. Such an important thing. Frederick, what about you?

[00:03:26] Yeah, look, I think there's a few things also that come to mind and of course, you know, one of the things that's top of mind that I think we could always talk about is how do you use technology and I feel like you can't be in a conversation in a call center.

[00:03:43] In a call center context without using gender to AI. But, and that is important and there's stuff we're doing. But honestly the biggest changes and that we've made are similar to what Troy you mentioned on the people side.

[00:04:00] And specifically two things stand out that one is when we started third way and we're younger organization. We specifically made the decision to invest in our talent. And so we said we're going to actually pay above market and we're going to increase your benefits.

[00:04:20] And we're going to invest in your well being at work so much so that there's more services at our workplace than when I'm at home or anywhere else.

[00:04:30] And honestly, healthcare I fundamentally believe is by and in between people. And you know we want to make sure that our people like the work that they're doing and they don't have anything else that they need to worry about. So that's step one.

[00:04:46] I think step two is it's this delicate balance and I'm sure Troy, you've seen as many times as well is how do you make sure that you have standardized responses. But at the same time you're innovating for the patient right because you and you that's always this delicate balance between the two and so we started to specifically teach problem solving to our team because

[00:05:11] Because nothing is more frustrating as a member as a patient when you know you're feel like you're asking us straightforward question and you're not and you're getting the straightforward answer that's out of the playbook. And so I feel like those two things are what we generally see have made a really big impact.

[00:05:28] Interesting. Thanks. So Troy, I mean in all transparency I actually saw one of your 2020-21 podcasts and you talked about a couple of things that really resonated with me and I was like I need to get you on this part to talk about those things.

[00:05:43] So I'm going to pick one of those things first. So you have mentioned the importance of understanding customer triggers early on in the conversation and in that conversation you were saying that,

[00:05:57] you know, there's always KPIs and stuff. Teams have to meet but the success come from understanding the customer triggers early on in these conversations with customers. So can you elaborate on how your team has successfully implement that thing? How it works.

[00:06:16] Yeah, I mean you hit on an important point of and I think Frederick mentioned earlier is that balance between having consistency in like your greetings your closings but then also what we focus on is critical thinking skills.

[00:06:31] So you know a member may call about one item and then as you talk to them they have two or three more in there. And instead of just going through this checklist of okay I heard number one and then dismiss it really listening like what is the journey here and really understanding that.

[00:06:48] So I think that is a big piece of it is really about you know listening to the member understanding what it is they're asking and really being able to take take the call from beginning to end and hearing the member in their journey.

[00:07:03] And Frederick now taking this little further along the lines like you know there is obviously standardization that helps and that helps with efficiency. But on the flip side of it is delivering a better customer experience so how do you balance both these things?

[00:07:28] Yeah so I think for us again it's like two sides of the coin right there's there's our there's the patient and there's our team member there's the human interaction and then there's technology that can support that.

[00:07:46] So two things that we pay particular close attention to is teaching like just re emotional reinforcement.

[00:07:55] Hey if someone calls you they're running late or they're upset right it's like acknowledging that right like there's a human on the other end of the line and that that sounds super basic.

[00:08:06] When you have never been in a call center and it met that that human reinforcement can get lost if you take 70 calls in the day right. And it's important to remind people of that time and again and to humanize everything that's going on.

[00:08:21] The other thing that we've tried and that's working quite well is to try to as much as possible pick up context about the member or the patients who kind of deal with both sides of providers and payers and the missiles.

[00:08:37] And to say to kind of make a guess where possible hey are you calling about your updated appointment or you know like we can try to help our team members and for and make the person feel known.

[00:08:49] Right, and like I have this one when I call Delta let's say and they say oh are you calling about your flight in two days. It's a nice opening right and you immediately feel like you're you're talking to someone that sees you as a as a specific person.

[00:09:01] I think. Technology compliments this right so we have to we invest a lot and try to continuously invest into how do you create that context how do you help our team member find out who this patient is.

[00:09:16] How do you suggest answers to them how do you allow them to focus on the patient without having to focus on the system so.

[00:09:23] I think that's where we've it still have a lot of work in progress and a lot of a long way to go but that's the foundation for achieving that outcome. Wonderful and. Use that's a little bit of data and tech so.

[00:09:42] I guess my question to you try like this so much. High-prop out AI right now it's like and it's probably one of the most you know talked about topic in customer service world because you know it's been always been a talk.

[00:09:57] I'm up and I think that's deck on the way you have such many different options. I would describe myself. What's. The discussion we went through now as a non video and the last and we may go!

[00:10:13] How do you see the impact of it and are you guys already implemented something on AI some initiatives and be deployed on your head or. on some initiatives with AI. And there's a couple of things I would say that to really be

[00:10:26] cautious of is one your employee is going back to people because they're naturally as a threat. If you're misinformed it's like my job's going away, I'm no longer needed and that's the furthest thing from the truth in our viewpoint. Because you cannot replace human interaction

[00:10:44] with something as difficult as healthcare. There's emotional ties. There's really kind of critical decisions that need to be made. They're support that needs to happen. And so we view it as like how

[00:10:55] do we use it to make our staff super humans and bring the information to them, make their job simpler and really kind of show the true value add that they bring from the human side of it. So yeah,

[00:11:09] it's great. It's a great tool. I think the old added Joe find the needle in a haystack right? You had all this stuff going on and it brings to light. Here's the point of focus and here's

[00:11:19] what we need to be kind of addressing. So it just helps speed that up. I think it also adds efficiencies to the operation. So here talking about operations like how do we become more efficient, more effective? Optimize the resources that we do have. But it's not about like

[00:11:33] getting rid of our staff. It's really how do we make them better and make their job simpler? Cut it and would you say that you're giving peer memorandum to your employees? Like hey guys,

[00:11:46] of course you're not trying to remove it. The goal is more productivity and get more efficiency going and hopefully better outcomes and less errors in everything. And that's what it is. So have you also started measuring any of these things and seeing all of the impact of this?

[00:12:03] No yet. We're new in the journey. You like literally it's launched in last week. So it's literally new for us but one of the points that you just talked about that comes to mind

[00:12:13] from me is change management. So how are you really going about what's the messaging about? Are you telling the why of it? Are you really kind of explaining the value at what it does for

[00:12:23] our members, what it does for our organization? So a lot of our intervention has really been through that piece on our messaging and our communication. And then also getting your leadership to truly

[00:12:36] buy into it and understand, so are they then cascading that message down to the front lines? You know from a leaders perspective, not a messenger. Okay and I like the superhuman messaging actually a lot. So Frederick what about you? Like slightly different for

[00:12:55] context, so I slightly different on your end because it's you know you're one of the value props probably to make things efficient for everything. So how do you view it? Like where do you see?

[00:13:09] I guess first question is have you also deployed any AI initiatives already and how far are you with those? And the second part to it is what are the future outlip in your operations that you see

[00:13:21] that you'll be able to create using AI? Yeah and that's a really interesting question and we were talking about this the other week what Troy mentioned where we invest a lot in our messaging to our team because really what our message is internally and externally is that

[00:13:43] we want AI to replace all the stuff that is just completely redundant. Right if I'm on the phone with a patient and I'm after check eligibility and you know some sort of a portal that's not

[00:13:56] adding value to anyone that's really important step but that's not adding value right and so there's a thousand of those administrative steps on the payer, Amazon, provider side and so how do you automate those away so that the conversation really becomes educated and informed and proactive?

[00:14:18] That's our viewpoint now. It's I, we as an organization fundamentally have built so that we test a lot of our technology internally and we build our own way to augment and find patients and provide prompts and this gets basically trained by our team because we think that

[00:14:43] this you know technology and AI needs to be integrated into operations and specifically in healthcare where data isn't flowing freely and processes might be complex it's really hard for anyone to try to just automate a complex process off the bat right and so that for us is

[00:15:03] is really the journey that we're going on and you know as much as finding the specific member and flagging if there might be any care gaps to that or to give a 360 degree point of view

[00:15:15] to the agent about who it is they're talking to and what they should be proactive with that person on the other end of the line is really a lot of our work and you know so that's the strategy

[00:15:28] and I think generally it's about how do we chip away at all the stuff that really is a redundant workflow and I feel like healthcare is just the the leader of having important but not very

[00:15:40] patient or member friendly workflows. It's uh and this is a little opinion I want to get from both of you like you know we went through this era of like hey we'll have this interconnected world

[00:15:55] to EHRs and quite honestly we're still not there it's we're far from there and it's home that's going on and one thing I am personally worried about AI is like yeah we want to automate

[00:16:07] stuff but will it also come with again a whole bunch of blenders of data with data is not standardized and AI doesn't work if the data is not right and then what happens it increases work instead

[00:16:19] of reducing work for everyone at least temporarily for a few months and the teams have to go through those phases of trauma in that regard and then only you get to that I hope I guess my question is

[00:16:32] how are you guys cautious in that way but do you see like oh my god you know I'm ready but you know it's going to be that kind of cycle how do you view this toy? Yeah definitely you know for us

[00:16:47] we lead with caution in that aspect right so for me data you need to have it and out the gate so when we run projects we run a we call them work streams right so you have kind of the requirements

[00:16:59] yeah the implementation but then there's also a reporting work stream and a data work stream so it all goes in hand we don't wait and get an implement and then figure out data like no we need

[00:17:08] to know this along the way so like for instance you know first couple days the expectation is that every single agent that we have or advocate that we have is really signed up because it's another

[00:17:20] so we have single sign-on but you have to be signed into the app and if you're not signed in we're looking at utilization reports so you know first week was like 75% and now we're up to like 90

[00:17:31] and so we're looking at that monitoring that's like step one just make sure they're using the tool and then I think another piece that some people skip is feedback sometimes they think it's just going

[00:17:41] well and you know creating an environment and that's one thing I really believe in as an environment where people can be transparent and truthful so if it's not going well tell us I

[00:17:50] don't want people kind of just sucking it up and being yes people right we need to understand what's out there what are the issues and how because it's about them and how do we make

[00:17:59] their lives better because then they're gonna better serve our members so I think for us it's reporting is data is checkpoints is getting feedback is cost of communication through those change management channels um those are all pieces that I think will help make it successful

[00:18:15] and Frederick what are your checkpoints are you following a similar path or something different yeah okay can you repeat that the question once again I think my my internet yeah so the question is you know AI it's are we going to see similar

[00:18:37] hype cycle as we had it for other tech where before it became useful we have to go through this all database and you know it just increased the work instead of reducing the work and it took

[00:18:48] several years to be very are today are you cautious or are you handling something differently what's your point of view of that I am cautious I think that the more you dive into AI the more

[00:19:08] it depends on data that is accessible and I feel like if there's one challenge in health care it's the fact that data between systems is not very well connected and it's actually really really really hard to create that integrated picture of the patient and stitched together all of

[00:19:26] these different systems and so AI is only gonna be as good as the data that they have access to which will depend on the organizational maturity and and I talk to a lot of organizations who

[00:19:41] don't want their patient conversations to be the training model for other organizations right which is the way that large language models and small language models work right so I don't so for me those are really two fundamental fundamental questions that I don't really see

[00:20:07] how they will be resolved in the short term I think though in the medium to long term AI will you know the technology is going is going to change the paradigm and I think there's no

[00:20:20] question about it but those are really important issues and and I think you're absolutely right we are still in 2024 and when you look at the amount of manual steps that you need to do to

[00:20:31] between an electronic health record and payer systems and you know all the care coordination needs to be done in a valid based care world it seems arcane right and so I think there's

[00:20:45] a bigger question that this needs to be sorted out first for AI to really take off if one thing I would add to that is just when you think about anything there's a maturity curve

[00:20:54] there's a natural maturity curve right so you start some brand new you learn you grow and then you get more skilled at it and it just kind of gets better so one thing I think people need to put like

[00:21:05] a realistic lens on of it takes time you don't hit a switch and then you know everything's kind of excellent and new and improved it takes time right yeah very very familiar path in health care

[00:21:20] exactly all right so try so the second thing that I want to go back to the second thing that I really really liked and I want to bring this out you mentioned that to measure the customer satisfaction

[00:21:35] and you quoted it you want to hear hearing the customers smile and how do you how do you train and motivate your teams to deliver that you know this is like high level of customer service by the

[00:21:48] way as soon as I heard about it I was your friend just it will translate so tell me about this please yeah so there's a couple things going back to the staff right really like so one simple thing

[00:22:03] is all of folks since COVID there are remote and so one of the things is how do you show about work and if you're in your home office and there's no one else right a simple mirror so

[00:22:13] given a little simpler mirror and and check in themselves as they get ready to kind of start their day it truly makes you have a reflection right to go like how am I showing up today that that's

[00:22:24] one piece of it and then I think the other pieces just are general training that we do so really have an empathy we look at our our population to its Medicare Advantage Fland you know typically 65

[00:22:36] in above is is and that's a spectrum right there's some that are very kind of self-sufficient out in the gym you know multiple times a week and there's others that are really you know sick

[00:22:46] and and need kind of a lot of services and care so there's a whole spectrum of membership that we have and how do you train that empathy so one of the things you know when my mother was living

[00:22:57] and she was a scan member was that you know you show up and and I want every member that you talk to treat him as if it was my mother at the end of that line or treat him as your grandparents

[00:23:06] treat him as your parent and so when you really personalize that it really kind of draws that connection of empathy and then at the end of the day because we're not for profit we're really

[00:23:16] about our mission so keeping our members you know healthy and independent and so helping everyone to believe in it at by into that and at the end of the day so when you talk about creating a smile

[00:23:27] phone is a component of all those things is like how did you show up what is your training like who is it that you're trying to serve and what is your goal and mission at the end of the day

[00:23:36] and then when you think about just simple things like asking some our staff like what was the best service you received in the last month or two you went to get a hammer or you went to you know

[00:23:45] hotel or you went to an event and then helping them understand and reflect that back into what they're doing daily then that's where the magic happens I respect it love it love it Frederick any any thoughts on

[00:23:57] this approach are you guys doing something similar yeah i i think very much so i i think at the end of the day we tried to really remind our our team members about the impact that they have right and that's

[00:24:17] through humanizing and sharing stories of patients of members of providers of care teams that we've had the chance to help and we also tried to create a positive sense of inspiration and maybe competition about this by trying to highlight like this was a really positive interaction and

[00:24:38] you know here is who said the bar and why don't we all learn from that to try to meet that honestly it's it's it's so easy and i i feel like i work in this space a lot and i sometimes

[00:24:55] forget and i love listening to these calls because it's sort of your your zone your day to day especially when it's really busy and you're working through stuff and there's maybe someone

[00:25:05] else on the other end of the line who's frustrated right and you're trying to do your job and it's it's really hard and so i feel like if we try to do it as much as we can and i would say

[00:25:15] we probably still don't do it enough because it's so easy in the hustle and bustle of the day to day to for someone to just be human and be frustrated and you you know you're dealing with a

[00:25:26] difficult situation but yeah we do everything around trying to remember people remind our people on on on the mission and and what it looks like to be a patient or care team member that's trying

[00:25:38] to help a patient and honestly the impact i think people forget right if you take a quarter million a million calls those are a million touchpoints between patients and the health cases and we might navigate someone's mother grandmother on uncle to help seek care that they haven't

[00:25:55] been able to right and and and those are such powerful moments and and i think it's it's like you just got to find any way possible to remind folks that that this is the impact that we're

[00:26:06] having on a day to day basis i i'm thinking of this in like from a sales where i saw a tool which was doing the analysis of the calls and giving the sentiments on the call in terms of

[00:26:22] emotions like how good the call was emotionally and it and there are few tools that i've seen in the sales were not necessarily in this side of the world but i wonder if a technology like

[00:26:39] that would be really helpful in just training and bringing out those examples have you guys seen any of this or are you guys by any chance using any of these kind of technology to analyze those

[00:26:50] calls sentiments especially emotionally so you can then also use it on the training site yeah so we've we've deved in a little bit into your point there's a lot of tools out there's

[00:27:01] what's kind of understanding with the best for our environment but but it is we do a lot of back in natural language processing and really kind of have a team that works on insights and

[00:27:12] and brings that to light and then we incorporate that back in to our training you know to use cases but to to have it as an actual tool that feeds right as integrators this we're not

[00:27:24] there yet but we do have you know pieces of that on the back in fact is your team they're in something go ahead yeah i think honestly it ties into this this general notion about AI and

[00:27:39] where things stand with AI the more we specialize in a lot of complex processes right and like the more you try to get into problem solving and really figure out what's the right way and it's

[00:27:52] not always a clear answer that is pretty cut and dry the the more the harder it is for any type of tool to listen right a lot of the AI tools that do this type of work are really helping you

[00:28:09] follow a standard call flow and like did you do the you know did you follow the call flow but that's missing a lot of the in between that is really really important to the member and the

[00:28:20] provider and the patient experience and so we're honestly still experimenting with how to leverage that I think this will probably be an easier evolution but it is a then like really advancing AI as a

[00:28:36] as a whole because it's just it's a more defined playing field but i'm excited to see where this goes i will say that so far what we've seen off the shelf isn't really suitable for a lot of the

[00:28:49] use cases and so we're trying to figure out how we can enable our teams around that. I'm going to do a little bit of backpedaling on this one it's like you know there is also this thing

[00:29:01] right like how you were saying if every AI model is just replicating the same kind of templates there is no difference in the word everything will look like safe and that's that's I think no

[00:29:13] one has that answer yet in the AI world like how that especially natural language or human language will be processed and seen in the world and there will be proper analysis of that we don't

[00:29:25] know I don't think anyone has that answer yet so it's too early to say it but it's a good point and good reminder to just think where this might be heading hopefully it will be useful and that's

[00:29:35] the hope but but we also don't want to end up in a world where everyone is just using the same template everybody's going to the five steps everyone does it which is very bad for everyone

[00:29:47] now I want to talk about both of your challenges in your current roles so try what are few of the biggest challenges that you have in that your current role that you're still looking

[00:30:00] to resolve yeah it's almost like if you go to the supermarket and you go to get a box of cereal like how many choices are out there right and so if you kind of bring that back into

[00:30:16] operations and technology you think about like we just had a little bit of dialogue around it how many options are out there are they the right fit for your organization you look at time there's

[00:30:27] going to be time to implement there's going to be cost to get it in there and so there's all these factors that you have to try to manage you know it's for the good you know you need to do it

[00:30:38] and so I guess at a high level it's really like you get all of that out there and so just getting the right fit for your organization the right tools and then I think the other piece is just overall

[00:30:50] priorities so in healthcare you know we're highly regulated which I think is a good thing to make sure that you know we're doing the right thing for different presentations but it also kind of creates

[00:31:01] constraints sometimes and so when you have those constraints you have to operate within those so that is a piece of it and then just overall so those those create like what I call the

[00:31:13] day job so that's kind of you know bread and butter you got to make it happen you got to do it but then at the same time while that you keep that train moving and keep it running well

[00:31:23] how are you now innovating how are you really kind of taking it to the next level how are you differentiating so that we are to go to health plan versus you know someone else down the street so

[00:31:35] those I think are just constant operational challenges and then lastly I would say just in a in a remote environment in my opinion it's critical that you keep engagement with your teams

[00:31:49] and so how do you continue to it creative with that and ensure you have that that tie in that bond you know from your front line all the way up to me as the business owner. Nice and um

[00:32:03] try do you also have is it like all the entire team is in-house or do you have parts of it's also with other health care BPO partners. Yes so the majority is in-house and we do have

[00:32:20] you know I'd say 10% or so that are with BPO partners and those are near shore so got it okay fed the cow out your challenges I mean it might be slightly different from Troyes because you're also the CEO of the company but keeping the health care operation side

[00:32:38] what would you say the biggest challenges are? You know the interesting thing is it's a lot of the same concepts right how do you continue to execute while we'll innovate and really for us this is

[00:32:52] the we live in an industry where it feels like changes on the horizon but no one really understands the change and how to appropriately digest it because there's just a lot of noise out there

[00:33:10] and really it's the same for us right how do we at the end of the day and try really like your term that create super humans and not get distracted by all the noise that can come by

[00:33:24] organizations you know external organizations coming to you and saying we can automate you know every every part on the disson and you know that takes time to investigate and figure out if

[00:33:34] that's really it added value or or distraction so I think for us that's that's the one component I think the other part is we're we're still a growing organization and so for us it's really

[00:33:47] about how do you make sure that you and we evolve our processes we spent a lot of time and effort on training and so how do we balance for instance being very conscious about the training and

[00:34:00] upskilling of our team members well not about finding that balance with the execution part of it right because you can't sort of learn and execute at the same time and pose for the really important

[00:34:10] concepts and you don't want to overdo one at the expense of the other and so I would say those are really the two biggest things that are actually somewhat similar but really top of mine for us because

[00:34:24] you know we we want to try to stay ahead of where the industry is going very good and then little bit looking into the future how do you foresee the evolution of customer contact centers in

[00:34:39] next five years Troy yeah I think there will be automation for what I call the easy stuff so things that are repetitive in nature things that are not very emotionally tied and being able to

[00:34:57] kind of so I think there's a play from a technology perspective to automate those kind of things and then I think the other piece is it's going to be an interesting deal because

[00:35:08] what I've seen and again I think a lot of folks talk you know pre-pandemic and post-pandemic because that was like obviously a huge piece right and when I think about post-pandemic

[00:35:19] folks really kind of got away from service in a sense and just said you know it is what it is we don't have the people if wait times or five minutes 10 minutes then you're going to wait because that's

[00:35:31] that's what we have we don't have the people we don't have this that's for us and so I feel like that true commitment to to service left a little bit and I think kind of to to further

[00:35:42] it's point around the noise that's out there I think it's kind of norming now it's coming back to go like okay you know you do have to kind of respect your clients and your members and your patients

[00:35:53] you are on the hook for providing that service so I feel like that's kind of norming and I think the technology will help assist which will drive efficiencies and I think long-term

[00:36:06] it'll be a good blend so I don't know if that answer question maybe but I think it's going to be a blend of technology and human service. So so technology for sure but really bringing the

[00:36:16] customer service back in the game and making it better through assisted technology wonderful and FEDIC how about you yeah I think this will be a really interesting time for the overall industry. I agree that ideally in five years the interaction between patients members

[00:36:42] providers and and the healthcare sort of ecosystem is going to be such that the easy questions that are straightforward can get answered on their own and the stuff that is really complex where you would actually prefer to talk to someone because there aren't that many clear

[00:36:59] paths and you're trying to find answers that gets really easy to do. You know I I wonder where this is leading though and how I think the industry at large will find a balance because the

[00:37:15] reality is that if you are I don't know if you're Apple or Google right like AI you can automate your customer service mostly way because the the true answer is no one wants to talk

[00:37:28] to Google customer service or Apple customer service or whatever right. The true answers that this will never be true in healthcare because you do need to talk to the person and so I think there's going to be a temptation with some organizations to think that healthcare is self-service

[00:37:46] and like I think there's a there's a very real you know macroeconomic trend around what's happening with costs and inflation that I think creates temptations and I and I wonder where that will shake out right because I think healthcare is fundamentally different and

[00:38:09] I think there's a sort of a large part in the industry lot of the conversations that I have of folks trying to figure out what that future operating model is like and there's just so many

[00:38:18] unknowns so I think it's going to be really interesting. My idea. Good. Troy. Yeah if you I want to think I was going to add today I think there's going to be a big play on video right because

[00:38:29] when you think about like what happened where you couldn't kind of get in touch you know like six feet apart right and so you get this video thing going on and a couple things that I saw

[00:38:40] come out of that at least from a healthcare perspective is access so you think about folks that are in these rural communities or they don't have providers or doctors and so at least just that that frontline care of being able to understand and diagnose symptoms obviously something

[00:38:57] you got to be in person you got to get in the hospital you got to get whatever but I think the overall ongoing care and being able to communicate via video so that blend of technology

[00:39:07] I think is going to do nicely in the next few years to come. I was actually going in the same direction because I always fear that the technology we tried to go white too faster instead of deep and by

[00:39:19] that I mean is like if there is and this is just an example like you know I've worked in tech in health tech and one of the things was like hey we're selling this patient messaging solution yeah

[00:39:30] but can people who are can all age groups use all the things that they use for communication are you inclusive enough as a tech work as a tech company like are you going to still have

[00:39:42] people make phone calls to you who need to people who get video message people who get text so I think that's important as we as it might change but I think the focus should be still about like

[00:39:54] I don't want to use the term like you know just get better in one channel or another think of cover everything so that whole population is covered even though this small simple use cases

[00:40:07] and then we move to the next use case because otherwise there will always be drop-offs and drop-offs means you have always an inefficient system in the process that you're building over top

[00:40:16] so that's kind of my experience I have seen on the tech site especially because I'm guilty of that do even the bottom of my career okay so now because I have to sentiment from different phases

[00:40:29] different parts of health care world one from the health plan one from the BPO world in what ways do you think health care organizations and like health plans and BPOs can collaborate more effectively

[00:40:39] to improve member services try yeah my my take on that is it's a partnership right it's not like you know my way and my requirement and you know here here it is sign up and do it

[00:40:56] what I've seen is that it needs to be a true partnership I think culturally from you know the corporate environment like are you guys aligned in your partnership and what you're trying to achieve

[00:41:08] so so for me that's that's big on you know one creating the partnership and then for me like I look at it like they're an extension of my team so what I've seen in other other organizations is

[00:41:21] hey you know I hire this BPO do the job here it is I pay you and that's the end of the day whereas you know for me I go in from day one is like you need to be like an extension of my team

[00:41:35] I don't want to say like you're in another country you're in you know it's kind of a you know a partner that we sign up with is like no you're scan and here's how we operate and we kind of

[00:41:48] you know get along from there so for me it's driving that partnership and like expectations like goals priorities mission driven and kind of having that same kind of cultural values that's that Frederick how about you yeah and really what echo a lot of the same trend I think

[00:42:12] that we've seen our most successful partnerships once where even at the onset we sit down and we help reinvent a process or at least take stock of where the process and the procedures are right

[00:42:27] because a BPO and adopting you know in technology when you say if you you know digitize a bad process you haven't won anything if you outsource a bad process you also haven't won anything and

[00:42:39] I think that's always really an opportunity to also leverage external partners who you know all we do is work with patients and members we have a lot of interesting ideas of how to even have the leverage technology leverage operational redesign to improve processes in where there is the

[00:43:01] possibility so I think it's the most the best relationships we've had is where we've had that room because sometimes organizations are very rigid and they're defined and what their process should

[00:43:12] look like and that's okay right I think at the end of the day we are there to serve our customers but I think it's you're you're missing on the on the opportunity to leverage innovation

[00:43:24] specifically in a time like this where so much seems to be in flux so I think that's one I think the other one is I think there's there's a lot of BPO organizations that are just there to do a

[00:43:40] process and not be that partner right that Troy saying and you know what what does that mean to be a partner I want you stay ahead of regulations you provide insight into what others are doing you bring

[00:43:50] ideas to the table and I think all too much that is not happening and again I think there's just when you do something and that's the only thing you do all day long you get a lot of perspectives

[00:44:02] and experience and and sometimes that experiences make it it's way back from the BPO vendor to to the organization and and for me that's always an opportunity that's missed so if

[00:44:14] there is a health plan and they have their own technology and everything set up right and being a true partner would you so you are completely fine if they tell you like hey we don't want to use

[00:44:26] your or take at all you're going to make our take work and your team will jump on it we have I had many examples where we help fix our customers technology you know and

[00:44:39] specifically on the provider side it's we try to go maybe sometimes add out to our detriment a little bit too deep into trying to be the solution engineer look at at the end of the day our

[00:44:53] mission is we want to make health care more accessible for patients we want to make life easier for care teams right and so if if helping you if if helping someone that is struggling with technology

[00:45:04] and we just happen to be good problem solvers and technically adaptive if that gets the drop done that's great again I think you know where we can bring our technology to transform a process while

[00:45:16] achieving those goals um we would like that but it that's you know we we want to be pragmatic at the end of the day and yeah in the impact that we have okay great answer now I'm just going to conclude

[00:45:29] this show by one personal question which I love to ask people and try will start with you so can you share a defining moment from your early life or your life that has shaped the person you are

[00:45:44] today but you know this is something you probably haven't told anyone professionally and this is your chance to tell us so what would that be um I guess you know I was the youngest of four boys

[00:46:02] you know growing up so it's it's an interesting road because my oldest brother was like my protector and then the two brothers in between were the ones that really would get at me right and so

[00:46:18] and also being you know the baby of the family you know my dad kind of always looked out from his well so I have oldest brother and dad that they would always look out but I think it was just a challenge to

[00:46:30] really kind of I think it would all work out like the the two in the middle made me tough they made me really kind of you know value hard work hard ethics and then having that book end with

[00:46:46] that protection I think it truly shaped kind of who I am as an individual I think one other example was my high school basketball coach it's like if you step on this on this court no less than 120

[00:47:00] percent like don't even show up and so it just it just really gets in your head about like when you hit that core you're going at 120 percent and it just has carried in my life it's you know the way

[00:47:12] I approach things the way my work ethic the way I think about things so I don't know if that answer do you be with those it does oh it does it doesn't and you know to your to your father and to

[00:47:25] your siblings shout out to them for what you want today and to your coach great stuff thank you thanks for sharing perfect how about you yeah um that's a really interesting question I would say

[00:47:38] when I was 14 I moved from Germany to the to the US and it's an interesting age to to move countries because all of a sudden things that you have always taken for granted right

[00:47:56] your language your nationality or background right like you those are all put into question and I think it gives you a little bit of an outsider's perspective and makes you question some

[00:48:10] things that maybe you you always assume and I carry that forward in languages I mean we have a big team in America I've done business all over Europe and the Middle East and I and I have

[00:48:25] learning like myself and so you you kind of realize that there are there's another side to the person and you learn how to put yourself in their shoes a little bit more that actually helps you

[00:48:39] better understand where they're coming from why they might be upset what motivates them and I think we we try to apply this at scale but I also try to apply that to my personal interactions with

[00:48:50] folks that I have on a day to day basis it's funny like you know we spoke about this in previous interactions when I moved and I was born in race in India and when I decided to move into my second

[00:49:04] life which is by second career after engineering I ended up in Germany I didn't speak the language at all and it was literally the first time I remember I and my flat bed at a time we were

[00:49:18] we didn't even know that you know you can't just wave and stop the caps in Berlin like for example and you have to like call the number and then only it comes and we didn't speak any language

[00:49:28] literally I remember him looking at me from a distance while we were holding our food and we were like without saying go I were like what did we do while we're here you know that feeling

[00:49:40] but but you know afterwards it gives you a new sense of how you you know Immerson cultures and you I'm fortunate enough to be living in third continent throughout my life to work and lived and

[00:49:55] through my work and through my life and I found my wife here so that's completely she's Americans a completely different story different worlds but but I completely I think one thing that we underestimate is the value of just this you know meeting new people from different cultures

[00:50:16] and this is so much valuable especially in the context of what we become but also how it forms our world around work how we think about work and it's a different kind of respect so I really

[00:50:29] appreciate you sharing that as well Frederick well gentlemen thank you so much for being here it's been a great chat and try where can our listeners find you we can they hit you up

[00:50:44] yeah LinkedIn is the best part and and yeah I can connect from which from there great and Frederick how about you yeah I think likewise LinkedIn is always a really good place

[00:50:57] and then you can always visit us at www thirdway. health so thank you for having me and Troy nice to meet you use well thanks pleasure gentlemen thank you guys