In this episode, we delve into the mission of Summus, a healthcare company that aims to revolutionize the way patients access top medical expertise. Nick Razzi, Chief Revenue Officer at Summus Global, describes how their platform provides a quicker route for patients to connect with leading specialists, ensuring that critical healthcare decisions are informed by the best possible advice. The narrative explores the importance of specialty care, particularly for patients navigating complex health conditions, and how Summus plays a crucial role in guiding them through these challenges.
The episode also highlights the benefits of Summus's ability to rapidly connect its members with a network of esteemed doctors. This capability is not only about speed but also about the seamless integration with local healthcare systems, ensuring that patients receive comprehensive care. Additionally, the discussion touches upon how Summus has adapted to the healthcare landscape transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic, including their strategies for engaging with physicians and the trends they have observed in how their services are utilized.
Looking towards the future, Summus is focusing on developing condition-specific pathways that promise to further streamline the patient experience, potentially reducing healthcare costs and improving outcomes. The narrative provides insights into these upcoming initiatives and the positive implications they may have for the healthcare industry.
Key take-aways from the episode include:
Stay in Touch!
Have feedback, questions, or suggestions for show ideas? Send them to us at podcast@springbuk.com.
Please rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, and share it with your friends and colleagues. We appreciate you and thank you for listening!
Produced by David Pittman
Theme music: "Overboard" by Stay Outside
In this episode, we delve into the mission of Summus, a healthcare company that aims to revolutionize the way patients access top medical expertise. Nick Razzi, Chief Revenue Officer at Summus Global, describes how their platform provides a quicker route for patients to connect with leading specialists, ensuring that critical healthcare decisions are informed by the best possible advice. The narrative explores the importance of specialty care, particularly for patients navigating complex health conditions, and how Summus plays a crucial role in guiding them through these challenges.
The episode also highlights the benefits of Summus's ability to rapidly connect its members with a network of esteemed doctors. This capability is not only about speed but also about the seamless integration with local healthcare systems, ensuring that patients receive comprehensive care. Additionally, the discussion touches upon how Summus has adapted to the healthcare landscape transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic, including their strategies for engaging with physicians and the trends they have observed in how their services are utilized.
Looking towards the future, Summus is focusing on developing condition-specific pathways that promise to further streamline the patient experience, potentially reducing healthcare costs and improving outcomes. The narrative provides insights into these upcoming initiatives and the positive implications they may have for the healthcare industry.
Key take-aways from the episode include:
Stay in Touch!
Have feedback, questions, or suggestions for show ideas? Send them to us at podcast@springbuk.com.
Please rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, and share it with your friends and colleagues. We appreciate you and thank you for listening!
Produced by David Pittman
Theme music: "Overboard" by Stay Outside
Summus - Nick Razzi
[00:00:00] Jen: Well, hello everyone and welcome back to Healthcare on the Rocks, Employee Benefits with a Twist. I'm Jennifer Jones, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships and Population Health Practice Leader at Springbuk. As we all know, healthcare is complex, confusing, and costly. Specialty care is where much of the cost and complexity lies.
Nearly half of adults struggle to afford healthcare, leading to delayed or foregone medical care. Virtual health for specialty care can change all of this, accelerating access to best in class clinical guidance, advocacy, and navigation. Ultimately, helping employees and their families get the answers they need, all while providing personalized provider referrals when in person care is needed.
[00:00:43] David: With a doctor at the heart of every conversation, employees can make informed decisions, big or small, that result in better outcomes and reduced medical costs. Both employees and their healthcare specialists can benefit from thorough, thoughtful human interaction.
I'm David Pittman, the Senior Director of Marketing at Springbuk, and today we're talking with Nick Razzi, Chief Revenue Officer at Summus Global, which is a leading virtual health company one of the initial partners in our Springbuk Activate Partner Marketplace. Nick, thanks for joining us today.
[00:01:18] Nick: It's great to be here.
[00:01:19] David: So why don't you start by just giving us a little background of who is Nick and an overview of Summus.
[00:01:27] Nick: Yeah. So, like as you introduced me, my name is Nick Razzi. I'm the chief revenue officer here at Summus. I've been with Summus here, uh, almost four years, you know, time flies, uh, when you're building a small company into a big company. And really Summus is the platform where people go to access really high quality medical expertise across any healthcare question, concern, or diagnosis..
And, to that end we're really driven by two simple premises, right? Uh, the first one is that speed of access to high-quality medical expertise will help drive better medical decision making and fundamentally change health outcomes. And, you know, I think that's true in life as it is in healthcare, right? If you have access to better and more information, chances are you're going to make a better decision.
And the second premise is that, you know, we believe that the most trusted party in healthcare is the doctor. And our promise to our members and our clients is to put the highest quality of doctor in the middle of every interaction, large or small.
[00:02:20] Jen: Awesome. And we need to know that this is Nick's first podcast. So
[00:02:26] Nick: Yes. Yeah. So go, go eat,
[00:02:30] Jen: As you know, and I'm sure everyone who's listening also knows there are many challenges within the U. S. healthcare system today. So what do you see as really the biggest, what would you claim is the biggest issue we're looking at?
[00:02:43] Nick: Man, there's, there's certainly a ton of them, right? There are so many areas of healthcare people can choose to focus on. There's primary care, there's specialty care, there's, uh, Rx, right? There's navigation, there's mental health. We believe in specialty care, right? And, we believe the biggest issue in specialty care is education, access and affordability.
And, when people are diagnosed with something outside of primary care, they just don't know who to go to, what to do, and they don't have a guide to help them on their journey. Right? And the ambiguity, that, comes along with accessing special care tends to lead to increased complexity, higher costs, consent for riskier procedures, unnecessary diagnostic testing, and unnecessary office visits.
So, by accelerating access, we're able to help mitigate, you know, cost around high cost claims, uh, risk associated with employees making uninformed decisions out in the marketplace. Um, and then provide simplicity and what we all know to be a really complex healthcare ecosystem.
[00:03:45] David: So you've mentioned accelerating access, and I assume that is done through the virtual part. So maybe just explain a little bit more about how you accomplish virtual health specialty care.
[00:03:59] Nick: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So what we're able to do is connect our members within hours and days to the world's leading medical expertise, again, across any healthcare question, concern, or diagnosis. And we allow them to ask all the questions that they need. We then provide clinical insights and guidance on the best path of care.
And then using our clinical expertise, we're able to route them back into their local network to take action on those insights. And we stay with that member every step of the way.
[00:04:27] Jen: And how much time do you think is really reduced from being able to see a specialist for virtual care versus if someone had to wait for an in person, for that initial visit?
[00:04:38] Nick: Yeah. I mean, you know, there's all kinds of stats out there today that, you know, on the low end, it's three months on the high end, you know, some people, depending on the specialty, it's upward of six, seven, eight months, I, I think the time savings, uh, is such a small part of it, right?
The time that associated with trying to find a doctor is very difficult, but there's no information to help inform my decision making, right? It's not like buying tires or buying a commodity. It's much different, right? So it's hard to ascertain quality for somebody who doesn't deal with it every day.
Um, really the, the secret sauce is by having us connect with somebody or having us connect somebody with an expert to help them understand what's going on and bring that clarity together for them. I think that's really what's missing in healthcare today amongst a bunch of things, but is that human connection with the absolute best to say, hey, we got this. This is what you should know. Here's the best course of action for you. And oh, by the way, here are all the options that you could take as well. And here are the doctor or doctors that are best suited to take action on some of those options.
[00:05:44] Jen: I think that's a really interesting point because there's so many studies about people trust their doctors inherently. They don't trust the healthcare system, they don't trust the payers, but they trust their doctors. And they don't always know to ask for a second opinion or other options that are out there.
So I think what you're saying is so important as far as being able to have someone explain and really understand what this process is and what's out there is, is really just at the core as far as setting people up for the right type of care or the right type of procedures and everything else that goes into that.
Really, really interesting.
[00:06:21] Nick: And it spans kind of condition categories too. Like it could be something as benign as like, you know, I have high cholesterol and my doctor wants to put me on a statin, but I'm 43 years old. Or it could range all the way up to really serious like cancer ALS and it's like man I just I just blacked out when I heard those when I heard that diagnosis like I have no clue what's going on now I'm really turned upside down.
[00:06:44] David: Speaking of those conditions there and options. How do you see a virtual health solution like yours, uh, for specialty care? How's that differ from some of the condition specific solutions?
[00:06:59] Nick: What's different about it is It's a broad funnel of engagement, right? People can come to us for anything. I think one of the things that we're starting to see now, uh, on the condition-specific side is like the pandemic era buying kind of fueled this notion that like, I'm never going to see my people again, I'm never going to have that direct interaction.
And as a result, we rushed to support everything that we thought was necessary in healthcare for our employees and their families. So we started to line up all of these really great solutions side by side. But the adverse outcome of that was I just created a really complex internal ecosystem that I didn't equip my, my employees, uh, in the best way to navigate.
And so what people are seeing now are, man, I'm not seeing the impact that I thought I'm not getting utilization that I thought, and they're saying, I still want to support my employees, but I got to do it in a different way, right? I got to do it across the masses, not versus the, the minority and it's kind of lending itself to broader platforms, right?
So specialty care is really different in that it's just a bigger bucket where you can come to one kind of access point and access centers of excellence across the continuum of care.
[00:08:14] Jen: That's, I think a big need we hear particularly, so my team focuses on the direct employer enterprise market. And like you said, we saw this huge boom of everyone putting a solution in for all of them, you know, major chronic conditions, MSK, diabetes, cancer, everything like that. And now we're, you know, three, four years after that and they're like, I don't really know how each of them are doing, let alone my employees are confused, they don't know who to go to for what. And there has been a tremendous amount of desire to really consolidate down to not necessarily one solution, but one access point, like you mentioned, which I think is a huge piece of it.
As consumers, like you said, like it's easier to go to Amazon when you need to order anything because it's that one access point. And I think that's a huge takeaway as far as the need for solutions like that.
[00:09:07] Nick: Yeah. And I think the definition of good is evolving, right? So like pre 2020, you can point to just about anybody in healthcare and within, you know, a couple of degrees of separation, they'd be like, this is what good looks like. And now that we're finally on the kind of the backside of the pandemic, I think what good looks like is starting to evolve much differently than what was pre pandemic.
And it's, it's great, right? It's a, it's a paradigm shift, which is going to benefit a lot of people. But I think that, a lot of HR, benefits managers are still trying to figure that out.
[00:09:39] Jen: Well, let, I want to go back to one thing that you mentioned as well. And one thing we mentioned in the intro, knowing that if you have an individual that's utilizing your service who wants, or let's say they really need in-person care, how does that translate from your solution? How do you connect them to in-person care?
[00:09:58] Nick: Yeah, so we connect directly with their health plan, right? And I think that's the most important piece, right? So we sit on top of that health plan to help guide and direct care back into that plan. And that's the most important piece, right? Like people want to see the absolute best, and that's what we can provide on a virtual basis.
But then using our clinical expertise to connect to that health plan and say, Hey, here are the two to four really high-quality doctors that we recommend back in your health plan that are in your local area. Um, is the way that we're able to get them back to in-person care, right? So there's all kinds of studies out there that would say that, for most things, virtual care is, okay, right?
Like it's perfectly feasible, but there's still that piece of it where somebody doesn't need to physically see you or touch you or, you know, do an image, right? And in those instances is where we get them back in to take action on the insights from the consoles that they have with our expertise.
[00:10:51] Jen: And it's interesting because I think as we talked about the pandemic and the big boom with virtual care, uh, right at the beginning of all of that, we saw where that was traditionally more focused around primary care, maybe like urgent care. And now with this specialty care that you all offer, that was one kind of area that we just anticipated would never necessarily go virtual because it could be so complex. Can you just talk as far as how physicians feel as far as from a specialty perspective utilizing a virtual platform like this?
,
[00:11:26] Nick: The physicians that are on our platform absolutely love it. Uh, and I think for a number of reasons. One, we make it easy for them, right? We group together information and ways they'd like to see it so it makes it easy for them to connect with that member where they're not going through images and a bunch of notes, right? Everything's readily accessible for them.
Two, you know, what we hear from our doctors is like, this is what they got in medicine to do, right? Is to connect with people, especially specialty doctors, across really complex care pathways to help them understand what's going on. And when you think about really high-quality doctors, like, not many people have access to them. Right, so, uh, that's the other thing that they like.
And three, you know, we, we realigned incentives for specialty doctors. And I think that's why they also gravitate towards our platform. And, you know, you look now, uh, as we're kind of into the middle of this and we've become the leading, doctor's choice, where we have over 5, 100 experts across the top 50 academic medical centers in the country available within hours and days to, um, across any healthcare question for our employees and their, uh, and their families. It's fantastic. Doctors absolutely love it.
Good to hear. And I mentioned as far as with the pandemic and the, how that took off as far as with virtual care. So in our annual Employee Health Trends report, we focused a lot on in 2020 and 2021, the impact and just that explosion of virtual care. And what we've seen is that has dropped back some it's still higher than pre-pandemic levels, but I'm curious as far as what you all see as is that continuing to thrive and do you see numbers increase year over year? Yeah, it's actually been a pretty, uh, pretty steady trend up and to the right of utilization continuing to grow. I think it's a couple of different things. I think people are comfortable with it now that we've been kind of front and center using it. And then when they have the experience where they're just absolutely delighted, they tell their coworkers and they tell their family members.
So it creates this kind of flywheel effect that starts to really increase, uh, engagement and utilization. And in addition to the other things that we do to drive utilization engagement. So, you know, we see a really steady climb year over year, and utilization engagement across most of our clients.
[00:13:38] David: All of us in the software world love to see that chart going up into the right. So that that's great. Congratulations. Uh, can you tell me, I'm going to put you on the spot here. It may be the top three conditions that people use Summus for.
[00:13:55] Nick: I think it's everything that everybody thinks it is, right? So we, we do a lot of oncology cases, a lot of MSK, complex pediatrics as well. diabetes, weight loss management, a lot of women's health journey, right? So I think it's a lot of the top condition drivers that most people see inside of their populations.
But again, like it's not just, relegated to top conditions. Like I mentioned, you know, the, the, uh, hypertension type of thing, the, the cholesterol. It really ranges. But you know, to your point, we do see those top condition categories most often.
Makes
[00:14:30] Jen: sense. And we did mention that you are one of our inaugural partners as far as with the Springbuk Activate Marketplace. So we're really excited to have you a part of that. And I know your card has gotten a lot of interaction as far as interest in this virtual care, virtual specialty care. our listeners through as far as once they do engage, they see your card, they're interested, they've outreached you.
So once they engage with Summus, how do you all continue to support or improve the health outcomes and work to reduce healthcare costs from an employer side of things, and how is that measured?
[00:15:04] Nick: Yeah. So once we start to engage with an employee population or an employer, rather, Um, we work with them pretty intensely, right? Like this isn't a product placement, this is a platform to help engage most people. So you're not just putting in something.
So this is a platform that we work to kind of tie together their entire healthcare ecosystem. Like you mentioned, like one access point to enter, and then we can tie into different things that they have in place. And then it's really about learning about what are the top condition categories? How do we communicate that?
And then by deploying that expertise really quickly, like that's how we're improving the health outcome is getting people to the right place really quickly. And we have a number of member stories where, you know, we're changing treatment paths or modifying diagnosis or avoiding surgeries. Like we're just providing a better path of care for people and that better path of care and being more educated is definitely leading to just a better health outcome on the other side of it.
And then there's cost savings tied to those things, right? Uh, getting to the right place quickly, avoiding office visits, avoiding a risky procedure that might be recommended over something that's more benign, but better efficacy and outcomes. Uh, so it's a combination of all those things of how we're driving towards really good healthcare outcomes.
Again, I know I keep saying this, but across any healthcare question or concern.
[00:16:23] Jen: And, and I know you've talked about many different ways that you all are really transforming the healthcare industry from cost, utilization, quality, access. Is there anything else you would add to that as far as the, the impact Summus as a company is having on healthcare today?
[00:16:41] Nick: I think you hit the biggest ones. It's the access to the highest quality medical expertise. It's the outcomes, uh, but as a result, it's a radically different utilization profile. So, we're upwards of seven to 10 percent on average across our book of business. We certainly have uber users that are, you know, trending towards 20 and 30 percent. But again, it's just a way to continue to delight people in what seems to be a really tough healthcare ecosystem. Just a different way about going to market, and having people connect with expertise in a different way than what they've been used to over the years.
[00:17:19] Jen: Very good.
[00:17:20] David: Well, along the lines of, um, helping people connect to something that's different. What does the future look like for Summus? Where do you see the world going in, in this virtual healthcare space?
[00:17:33] Nick: So, we're really interested in condition-specific pathways. So like if you think about what we've built here and the kind of virtual centers of excellence that we've built across the healthcare continuum, that applies to condition-specific categories as well. So if you take a look at the types of oncology doctors that we have on our platform, we have a really tight oncology pathway.
And we think that we can build out those pathways across really top cost drivers and healthcare. So you think about metabolic disease, you think about MSK. Um, so to build these end-to-end condition-specific categories and get more specific inside of, you know, top cost drivers. I think that's where what we're looking towards next.
Obviously, you know, just broadly, right, is always going to be a mix of virtual and in person care, which I think we have covered on kind of the the personal physician referrals, but, uh, directly answer your question. That's, that's where we're headed next is more condition-specific pathways.
[00:18:33] David: Excellent. The specificity is great all the time. Well, this is fantastic, Nick, really well done. It's exciting to hear about your centers of excellence and the direction that you're heading with the condition-specific care. But that is it for us today. I really want to thank you for coming on and joining us and explaining what Summus does and how you're changing the world.
[00:19:00] Nick: I appreciate the time. This has been great. Um, and it was very, uh, you made the first time very easy for me. I appreciate that.
[00:19:07] David: You know, you were, you're a fantastic guest, so I really appreciate it. And everyone, if you enjoyed this episode, please take a second to go over to your favorite podcast player, give us a nice five-star rating, and maybe leave a comment. You know, let us know what you thought about this and what you would like to hear of more in the future.
[00:19:27] Jen: And remember, you can find all of our previous episodes at springbuk.com/podcast or in your favorite podcast player. While you're loading up all those other previous episodes, please hit the subscribe button so you won't miss any future episodes. Nick, once again, thanks so much for joining us today.
It was a pleasure having you on and thanks everyone for listening. Until next time.