Highway to Health: Recent Episodes
MarketScale
David Kemp will be sitting down with the leaders that are creating the roadmap for the future of healthcare.
When life’s challenges are the toughest, inspiration comes from those who’ve faced the worst and come out on top. Just ask Shay Eskew, Chief Sales Office at CirclesX, a man who took on life-threatening injuries as a child and transformed them into an inspiring life as an athlete. David Kemp sat down with Eskew, Author of What the Fire Ignited, to learn more about the man who views challenges as a doorway to opportunity.
Eskew’s main passions are his family, a wife and five children, and iron man competitions. These are things he didn’t think were possible when tragedy struck at eight. “My mom had asked me to warn my neighbors of an aggressive yellow jacket’s nest they had in the ground,” Eskew said. “I recruited my friend; we walked across the street; we knocked on the door. The dad wasn’t home, but the fifteen-year-old daughter was.” They showed the girl the nest. She lit a match on the nest and threw a cup of gasoline. The gasoline sprayed onto Eskew, and flames engulfed him. Life changed in an instant. And with no health insurance to cover extensive medical expenses, Eskew received a lifeline from The Cincinnati Shiners chapter, who stepped in to help.
Eskew received burns on over sixty percent of his body, and he told by physicians he’d never play competitive sports again over months of treatments and surgeries. Gauntlet thrown; challenge accepted. Eskew spent the next several decades transforming himself mentally and physically into becoming an athlete. “I’ve learned over the years that we all cherish the things we work for, not the things given to us.”
All the experiences and lessons Eskew’s learned he applies to his professional life working to solve health care challenges. “I’m a big believer in investing in teams,” Eskew said. “When you have the right team and culture, you can go places.” These values led Eskew to his current sales position with CirclesX. “What we do is look at paid Medicare claims, and using our technology, we can identify third-party payers, i.e., auto and workers-comp payers that should have paid the claim that inadvertently, or by frustration, got paid by Medicare.”
Highway to Health podcast host David Kemp sat down with Terry Coutsolioutsos, an experienced Healthcare Commercial Leader to discuss his 30-plus year career in the healthcare industry selling medical devices.
Coutsolioutsos has worked for companies leading healthcare innovation including Pfizer, Boston Scientific, Abbott Vascular, and Siemens Healthineers. The lively and relaxed conversation opened with a discussion of personal health habits and his journey to running daily while highlighting the importance of personal accountability in being healthy. From here the two gentlemen discussed elements of successful individuals.
“What makes really successful people successful is they know what they don’t know. They know where their wheelhouse is, they know when they are uncomfortable and they’re not afraid to say I don’t have a lot of expertise here, I don’t have a lot to add or can you help me understand this better,” noted Coutsolioutsos.
The insight into knowing what you don’t know is one element that has helped Coutsolioutsos be successful. He jokingly but seriously comments on the fact that every day is a new day and he’s constantly failing forward and learning. His dedication to the healthcare industry is obvious and his focus is clear. When asked what keeps him in the industry, he sums it up in one word – PURPOSE.
A lot of the work he’s been able to do has been transformational in healthcare with a great deal of experience working with cutting-edge medical devices as they were introduced into the medical field.
“You’re not just selling something, but actually, it’s a really hard thing because you’re creating transformation within the healthcare system. You are taking what has been done in the past and bringing new things forward and helping your customers do it less invasively, do it less costly, creating better patient care, better outcomes, shorter lengths of stays – all those sorts of things,” said Coutsolioutsos.
Additional topics of conversation included The Challenger Sale book, customer/patient experience, patient outcomes, physician burnout, margins of reimbursement, and much more. Coutsolioutsos’ vast experience and engaging insights make this an episode of Highway to Health not to miss.
From the patient to the provider to the payer, healthcare is a busy operating system that everyone plays an important role in. Reflecting on his journey in healthcare and the current operating system is Nick Love, a Benefit Strategist with Brinson Benefits. Host of Highway to Health host David Kemp sat down with Love to talk about his journey.
Love admittedly became interested in healthcare from an entrepreneurial and financial aspect, but over the years this has changed. “I’ve experienced healthcare in my personal life and…just how difficult it is navigating the system…that’s what I can help with and help people do…that’s what’s kept me in, is the ability to help people, to advocate for other people and show them better ways to be consumers and buyers of healthcare and healthcare services, really,” said Love.
Getting better is usually the #1 priority when you’re sick, and having someone to guide you through the process and advocate on your behalf is key. Love said, “That’s the foundation of our firm, really is to be advocates for other people. Whether you’re an employer, the buyer of healthcare for your people or you’re the end user.”
Healthcare should not be a confusing topic, but it is often an overly difficult and increasingly murky system. “Why does it cost $1,500 dollars for an MRI at one facility but $350 at another? And which one’s better? How do you decide? How do you know that?” reflected Love.
While virtual care can bring more attention to those who need it, it can also be misused. This is where patient responsibility comes in. As patients become more aware of the system and the price, patient responsibility is shifting to advocate for more transparent healthcare transactions, or opting out of professionally monitoring their health altogether. With healthcare costs continuing to rise, it falls to the patient, and people like Love, to advocate for change.
In many industries, including healthcare, staffing shortages and the challenges related to retaining and attracting top talent have become a major topic. David Kemp, host of Highway to Health spoke with Laurence Kessler, Senior Vice President of Growth and Partnerships at Healthrise on the matter.
The challenges with staffing have provided a major problem for hospitals and caregivers in the healthcare space. “Nurses and clinicians are becoming travel nurses because they are making more money elsewhere and CFOs are way over budget because they are looking outside for agency nurses,” Kessler said.
Kessler, who has an extensive background in healthcare digs further, “looking back, healthcare as an industry, we are behind compared to other industries in terms of technology, there is so much opportunity out there in the public health component,” he said.
But companies like Healthrise, they’re in the business of being problem solvers, “we’ve developed a staffing solution to provide the resources. We also have business office capabilities to help come in and work segments, but what’s cool is our new tool, demand workforce which is an app base solution that helps you fill in the nursing shifts with existing staff before you have to go look outside,” Kessler said. “We are filling 50% of shifts within 5 to 7 minutes.”
In the future Kessler hopes to see leaps in automation, “we are going to get better, we are going to be more efficient and figure out what functions can be automated going forward, so we can do more with less. It's going to help solve staffing solutions and provide employees with more satisfaction,” he said.
On this special episode of Highway to Health, David Kemp talks with his father, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Kemp. Dr. Kemp followed his father into the Air Force. He expected to do it for a few years and start a practice somewhere but ended up having a long tenure in the service.
“My dad thought I was crazy for going through dental school and then joining the military,” said Dr. Kemp. He saw it as an opportunity to move his family and grow his children’s ability to become adaptable. Before Dr. Kemp was born, his father had been a pilot in the Army Air Corps during WWII. Dr. Kemp recalls how his father talked about it and saw his uniforms growing up. He knew his father took a lot of pride in his time as a veteran. Dr. Kemp’s dental school classmate got him to consider the path to the services. However, he knew he would want to go into the Air Force. Dr. Kemp and his wife met when she needed a dental procedure and married within 12 weeks of the meeting, shortly after the new couple moved to Germany for the Air Force.
“We all just want to be like our dads, at the end of it,” said Kemp to his father. Our host reflected on the things that stand out from his childhood and lessons from his father. “When I think about the stuff I learned from you growing up… doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. That’s who you really are. Your character is who you are and what you act like when no one else is around,” he said. Of course, the instrumental parent relationship impacts who people grow to be. Dr. Kemp shares the wisdom of his time in the military and as a family man.
“Doing your best, making sure that you’re doing the best job you can,” Dr. Kemp said, is a key takeaway from his time in the military. Dr. Kemp wasn’t afraid of moving with his family every three to four years and saw it as an opportunity to ensure that his children weren’t getting stuck in a rut. Kemp reflects fondly on his childhood and his time with his father. Kemp closes with gratitude. “I wanna thank you for the dad that you were, the dad that you are, and the dad you’ll always be,” said Kemp to his father.
Keeping patient data safe and operations secure is an essential responsibility of any healthcare organization. Samuel Hill, the Director of Product Marketing at Medigate by Claroty, spoke with Highway to Health’s David Kemp about the importance of cybersecurity in healthcare and what organizations like Medigate are doing to keep institutions safe from threats.
Medical device security is as critical for a network to protect as patient data. While people don’t necessarily think of a cybersecurity attack on something like an infusion machine, the risks are real. These devices could pose issues for a healthcare organization should such an attack occur.
“Every single one of them is connected to a network and brings a fairly significant amount of risk,” Hill said. “And so, what we’ve tried to do is give an incredible amount of visibility and accurate visibility to those devices on the hospital’s network so they can better manage the risk of those devices.”
Navigating & lowering security risks and maximizing the operational effectiveness of all the medical devices in a healthcare ecosystem is what Medigate does for companies. “All of this is built on this foundation of data that we collect about each of these devices and report to the hospital in a streamlined way that helps many different people within an organization.”
Hill said hackers aren’t necessarily interested in the medical device, but they see it as an accessible entry-point into the rest of the network. “They’re trying to get into the network by any means necessary, and a connected device that can communicate to the internal and external network is another potential connection point.” These devices, designed for medical task performance, weren’t necessarily designed with built-in security features. So, it is up to the healthcare organizations to monitor these devices and ensure the proper security measures are in place.
Keeping patient data safe and operations secure is an essential responsibility of any healthcare organization. Samuel Hill, the Director of Product Marketing at Medigate by Claroty, spoke with Highway to Health’s David Kemp about the importance of cybersecurity in healthcare and what organizations like Medigate are doing to keep institutions safe from threats.
Medical device security is as critical for a network to protect as patient data. While people don’t necessarily think of a cybersecurity attack on something like an infusion machine, the risks are real. These devices could pose issues for a healthcare organization should such an attack occur.
“Every single one of them is connected to a network and brings a fairly significant amount of risk,” Hill said. “And so, what we’ve tried to do is give an incredible amount of visibility and accurate visibility to those devices on the hospital’s network so they can better manage the risk of those devices.”
Navigating & lowering security risks and maximizing the operational effectiveness of all the medical devices in a healthcare ecosystem is what Medigate does for companies. “All of this is built on this foundation of data that we collect about each of these devices and report to the hospital in a streamlined way that helps many different people within an organization.”
Hill said hackers aren’t necessarily interested in the medical device, but they see it as an accessible entry-point into the rest of the network. “They’re trying to get into the network by any means necessary, and a connected device that can communicate to the internal and external network is another potential connection point.” These devices, designed for medical task performance, weren’t necessarily designed with built-in security features. So, it is up to the healthcare organizations to monitor these devices and ensure the proper security measures are in place.
In a call of recruitment, Greg Ryan first learned of his job in a simple pitch: to help doctors save lives. Now as a Principal Solutions Engineer in the healthcare unit at Salesforce, Ryan knows how true that pitch rings. Ryan joined Highway to Health host David Kemp to discuss his critical role at Salesforce and how the process company is changing up the healthcare industry.
Unlike the name, the Salesforce healthcare unit does not sell things, in fact, they process them.
Often, doctors visits require an hour or maybe even two to schedule out of the day, with paperwork, travel time, and more blocking valuable facetime with the healthcare professional. Ryan’s experience in a clinical setting was different, coming in and out in 15 minutes or less. This sparked the question: how is the ease of this clinic visit possible when GP visits are more than twice the time?
“It’s because…the service that they’re providing is a product. And they’re going to get paid x amount of dollars for that product, so the only way for them to increase their profitability is to have more people coming through the system,” explained Ryan. While most clinic facilities take insurance (meaning the price is the same between clinic and GP), the time it takes to see a doctor and have a visit is significantly improved.
“They’re process-minded,” said Ryan about the clinic, which is why Salesforce entering the healthcare industry is important, as processing comes naturally to them.
Whenever an appointment is missed in a healthcare setting, that accounts for revenue loss on the part of the healthcare provider. Ryan knows this must be mitigated and the Salesforce healthcare unit aims to help remind people of their appointments and their healthcare needs via messages and phone calls, optimizing the process “in any sort of way that these organizations want to engage with their patients.”
Like most marketers, Josh Byrd, VP of Marketing at Relatient, has many passions. Outside of his marketing work with Relatient, Byrd is a professional country music songwriter. And it’s this ability to tell a story in song that strengthens Byrd’s abilities as a marketer. Byrd joined David Kemp on the Highway to Health to talk about his love for marketing and how merging passions is a recipe for success.
“Good marketing is about connection,” Byrd said. “Whether you’re writing a song or a blog, or a podcast, or a white paper, or anything, you’re really searching for that emotional connection.”
Byrd began his journey by mixing his dream of country music fame with some paying marketing gigs. And never one to pass down an opportunity when it came his way, Bryd soon found marketing an offer he couldn’t refuse. New passions emerged, and he discovered working for startups was an exciting area to practice his marketing abilities. Articulating a startup’s story happened to be up Byrd’s ally. “It wasn’t all too different from a music journey, right? It’s helping somebody tell their story.”
Eventually, Byrd worked for a healthcare startup, helping patients understand the payment process better. And now, working at Relatient, Byrd gets to focus on patient engagement at an even deeper level. “We’re working on the scheduling and messaging side of things to make sure that patients are involved in their care from the get-go.”
There is no end to challenges in healthcare, but success is always a corner away with the right tools and guidance. Patient engagement is an area ripe for improvement, and it’s a rewarding challenge that Byrd said brings purpose and meaning to his work. “Last year, Relatient engaged with we 50 million patients. That’s 50 million opportunities to make someone’s life better.”
Like most marketers, Josh Byrd, VP of Marketing at Relatient, has many passions. Outside of his marketing work with Relatient, Byrd is a professional country music songwriter. And it’s this ability to tell a story in song that strengthens Byrd’s abilities as a marketer. Byrd joined David Kemp on the Highway to Health to talk about his love for marketing and how merging passions is a recipe for success.
“Good marketing is about connection,” Byrd said. “Whether you’re writing a song or a blog, or a podcast, or a white paper, or anything, you’re really searching for that emotional connection.”
Byrd began his journey by mixing his dream of country music fame with some paying marketing gigs. And never one to pass down an opportunity when it came his way, Bryd soon found marketing an offer he couldn’t refuse. New passions emerged, and he discovered working for startups was an exciting area to practice his marketing abilities. Articulating a startup’s story happened to be up Byrd’s ally. “It wasn’t all too different from a music journey, right? It’s helping somebody tell their story.”
Eventually, Byrd worked for a healthcare startup, helping patients understand the payment process better. And now, working at Relatient, Byrd gets to focus on patient engagement at an even deeper level. “We’re working on the scheduling and messaging side of things to make sure that patients are involved in their care from the get-go.”
There is no end to challenges in healthcare, but success is always a corner away with the right tools and guidance. Patient engagement is an area ripe for improvement, and it’s a rewarding challenge that Byrd said brings purpose and meaning to his work. “Last year, Relatient engaged with we 50 million patients. That’s 50 million opportunities to make someone’s life better.”
Host David Kemp met guest Jaden Isler in 2010 at McMurry University playing basketball. While Kemp is now in healthcare, Isler remained in sports and is now the head coach for the Clovis Wildcat’s boys’ basketball team in New Mexico. The two discussed how these two industries came together during Isler's senior year of high school when Isler’s heart stopped while watching a softball game.
After Isler collapsed, a doctor in the stands recognized that he was not having a seizure as initially thought by some spectators. Isler was taking agonal breaths, which look like deep gasps and occur as the human body is dying. Thanks to a firefighter, a doctor, and a policeman, Isler was stabilized and taken to a hospital in Amarillo.
After a week of testing, it was unclear why Isler’s heart had stopped, and he was moved to Houston. Thankfully, Isler’s cardiologist ensured that he was able to continue to play basketball, and through rigorous research and extra care, Isler was fitted with a defibrillator. This lifesaving solution enabled Isler to join the other Charleston Southern freshman players for training, eventually realizing his dreams of becoming a division one player.
After a successful playing career, Isler is seeing similar success coaching and took his team to state in his first season. He’s been impressed with how his players have navigated through the pandemic. Isler said, “I got to hand it to our kids, our kids never complained, they just wanted to be able to play and whatever it took, that’s what we did… taking things day by day and trying to keep our program on track.”
Kemp’s discussion with Isler reminds all healthcare professionals of why they go into healthcare in the first place: the opportunity to positively impact the longevity of a patient’s life.
Host David Kemp met guest Jaden Isler in 2010 at McMurry University playing basketball. While Kemp is now in healthcare, Isler remained in sports and is now the head coach for the Clovis Wildcat’s boys’ basketball team in New Mexico. The two discussed how these two industries came together during Isler's senior year of high school when Isler’s heart stopped while watching a softball game.
After Isler collapsed, a doctor in the stands recognized that he was not having a seizure as initially thought by some spectators. Isler was taking agonal breaths, which look like deep gasps and occur as the human body is dying. Thanks to a firefighter, a doctor, and a policeman, Isler was stabilized and taken to a hospital in Amarillo.
After a week of testing, it was unclear why Isler’s heart had stopped, and he was moved to Houston. Thankfully, Isler’s cardiologist ensured that he was able to continue to play basketball, and through rigorous research and extra care, Isler was fitted with a defibrillator. This lifesaving solution enabled Isler to join the other Charleston Southern freshman players for training, eventually realizing his dreams of becoming a division one player.
After a successful playing career, Isler is seeing similar success coaching and took his team to state in his first season. He’s been impressed with how his players have navigated through the pandemic. Isler said, “I got to hand it to our kids, our kids never complained, they just wanted to be able to play and whatever it took, that’s what we did… taking things day by day and trying to keep our program on track.”
Kemp’s discussion with Isler reminds all healthcare professionals of why they go into healthcare in the first place: the opportunity to positively impact the longevity of a patient’s life.
Highway to Health’s host welcomed Ryan Coplon, CEO at HealthWallet, about trends within the healthcare industry and how technology is helping to address evolving consumer needs. HealthWallet is a mobile app that is changing the way healthcare is delivered by simplifying the healthcare system for consumers.
Coplon discussed how HealthWallet came to be as well as his journey to becoming a member of an organization working to transform the customer’s journey within this complicated system. Having started in employee benefits consulting, Coplon moved on to become a partner at a firm that built and managed self-funded health plans.
However, over time, the revelation that as health plans became more sophisticated in design, they also became more confusing for plan members. So, the idea for HealthWallet was born.
We realized there was an “opportunity to leverage mobile technology and try and simplify that experience for originally our health plan members and realized we had a commercially viable solution that other health plans and health plan administrators could benefit from,” Coplon said.
He went on to discuss the trend of healthcare consumerism as well as the gap between the expectations of the consumer and the behavior of the consumer. Noting that this trend has risen to the forefront of healthcare challenges, Coplon opinioned “that the thought of applying traditional consumerism behavior in a healthcare model is something that is not going to line up in a way that’s commercially effective.”
And while consumers may not be happy with this reality, the fact remains that the healthcare system is not designed for consumerism. Consumers are dictated by the confines of the benefits program they have as well as the complexity of the healthcare system.
However, there is a middle ground that can serve both consumers and plan providers – this is where HealthWallet thrives. “The crossroads between convenience and cost-effectiveness is where healthcare consumerism has a chance and that infrastructure needs to be laid at a strategy level related to plan design and optimal entry into the healthcare system,” Coplon explained.
Make health care options financially beneficial and more convenient and consumers will engage with the system in a more productive and positive way.